Author: David Short

Luke 5:27-28

After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he left all, rose up, and followed Him.

Encouraging Words

We often focus on just the fact that Jesus was willing to call upon a tax collector to follow Him. Tax collectors were hated by their fellow Jews. Indeed, it is great news that Jesus would call someone like Levi (Matthew) to follow Him, for this gives me hope that He might be willing to call someone like me to follow Him as well. The other part of this story that is so powerful is Levi’s response, He was most likely living a pretty lucrative life because tax collectors were wealthy people. They got their wealth by swindling everyone that the collected taxes from. What is so powerful about this is that Levi dropped everything, left his wealth behind, and followed Jesus, who had no temporal wealth. Would I be willing to do that? Would I be willing to trust, obey, and follow this nomadic Rabbi? Is Jesus that important to me? Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Tobit 12:8-9

Prayer is good with fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness. A few prayers with righteousness are better than many with wrongdoing. It is better to do almsgiving than to lay up gold. For almsgiving rescues one from death, and it will wash away every sin. Those who do almsgiving and are righteous will be full of life.

Personal Challenge

It is so easy for me to get focused on those things that are considered acts of worship and neglect the things that God asks me to do. Things like prayer time, bible reading and study time, sitting through liturgy, and the list goes on. Tobit reminds us that while these things are still good, they do not truly deepen our relationship with our Lord unless they are coupled with fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness. Our modern Christian faith practices have stripped our Christian journey of these acts because we fear that people will get hung up on works. We know and teach in our Orthodox faith practice that we will never earn favor with God by our works. We know that there is nothing that we can do to earn our way into His family. Actually, we believe that we deserve nothing from our God. However, if I want to experience God’s grace, love, and mercy to the fullest extent then I must be fully investing of myself in His work, His labors. This is where fasting, almsgiving, and righteous acts give us our opportunities to grow in His image the most, Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Encouraging Words

Many years before our Lord Jesus Christ came as a man, Isaiah had prophesied of the coming of our Savior with this proclamation. Jesus used these very words to announce His ministry and the plans that our Heavenly Father had for Him. Jesus made it clear that He is a part of the Trinity, God the son, and that He had always, since the beginning of time, been anointed by the Holy Spirit to do the work of the salvation of mankind. Jesus did not become something special or different because of this proclamation. He had always been the Son of God. Before He was born of the Virgin Mary, He was the pre-incarnate Son of Man, and after His birth, He was now the Incarnate Son of Man, This is all a mystery that God knows the truth of. But for us this means that He has preached the gospel of truth to us for we are poor, He has brought healing to us for we are brokenhearted, He has set or free from the captivity of death. He has cured our blindness, and He has released us from oppression. Thank You, oh my Lord!

Psalms 62:1-2 (61:2-3 LXX)

Shall not my soul be submissive to God?
For from Him is my salvation.
For He is my God and my savior,
My protector; I shall be shaken no more.

Personal Challenge

So, what is salvation? What are we being saved from? Some will say that we are being saved from God’s wrathful judgment. But how can this be if we claim that He is all love and mercy? We are being saved from the sting of death that was given to us from sin. Jesus, our Lord, and Savior, became incarnate, lived a perfect and sinless life, then willingly let His life be taken from Him so that He could die in our place, Then, while in hell, He destroyed the gates that hold us in bondage to death and saved all of mankind, and creation, from death. It is because of this glorious truth that our soul is submissive to God and why we are shaken no more by the evils of this world that try to distract us from trusting in Him. Glory be to God.

Tobit 12:6-7 LXX

Then Raphael secretly called the two of them, and said to them, “Bless God and give Him thanks. Ascribe greatness to Him and give thanks in the presence of all the living for what He has done for you. It is good to bless God and to exalt His name. Make known the words of God’s works honorably and do not delay to give thanks to Him. It is noble to keep hidden the secret of a king, but glorious to unveil the works of God. Do good, and evil will not find you.”

Encouraging Words

Just because someone might say that they do not believe in angels, or God, or Jesus as our Savior, does not make it so. As for me, I choose to believe in all of these and then to live my life accordingly. Throughout the book of Tobit, we find that Raphael, an angel sent by God, is active in the lives of both Tobit and his son, Tobias. Raphael is not controlling their lives or manipulating them because he cannot do that. We are all accountable for our own decisions and never coerced by God or His angels to do something against our will. After spending time with Tobit and Tobias, appearing as a human, he reveals who he is to them and gives them this powerful advice, advice that all of us can learn from. We should continually bless God and give Him thanks for what He does in our lives. We should freely ascribe greatness to Him in the presence of everyone in our lives. We should make known, from the rooftops, His words, His works, and His greatness in our lives and the lives of everyone.

Luke 4:1

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

Encouraging Words

When we were baptized and chrismated with the holy oil, we were filled with the Holy Spirit just as Jesus was when He was baptized in the Jordan river. And just as Jesus followed that experience by being led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to begin His life as a worker for God, so too, do we get led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness of the world for the remainder of our days. At this point in our journey through life, we are no longer a citizen of this world, but we are citizens of heaven acting as ambassadors for God in this world. We can live each day, each moment, knowing that our true home is in heaven with our Lord. We can know that His heavenly kingdom was ushered into existence on the first Pascha when He destroyed the gates of hell and the hold that death had on us. We are no longer subject to the principalities of this earthly realm because we belong to the family of the living, and life-giving God. Glory be to God!

Psalms 62:1-2 (63:2-3 LXX)

O God, my God, I rise early to be with You;
My soul thirsts for You.
How often my flesh thirsts for You
In a desolate, impassable, and waterless land.

Encouraging Words

Our world that we live in can quickly become a desolate, impassable, and waterless land. Life can be difficult. And sometimes this difficulty feels like it lasts forever. Praise God that we can turn to Him to provide for our needs at all times, whether in prosperity or desolation, in times where all paths seem to be smooth and straight or just plain impassable, whether they be lush and full of green pastures or barren and waterless. My God, our God, is there for as always. He is always ready to meet our needs, in ways that we can never imagine and in abundance that we cannot conceive of. So why would I not rise up early to be with Him? Why would I not keep Him ever present on my thoughts
and prayers throughout the day? Why would I choose to let the busyness of life come between Him and me? To break these obstructions I must develop a hunger and a thirst for Him that permeates my entire being. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Today we participate in the death of our Lord. Today we see Him hang on the cross. Today we wept as our brothers and sisters before us, as we grieve over the humiliation of our God! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!