Category: Uncategorized

Ezra 4:59-60 (1 Esdras LXX)

“The victory and the wisdom are from You, the glory is Yours, and I am Your servant. Blessed are You who granted me wisdom, and I give thanks to You, O Lord of our fathers.”

Personal Challenge

I so often find myself thinking, and therefore, behaving as if I am the one who has accomplished everything in my life and therefore relegating God to a back seat in my journey to theosis. This cannot be farther from the truth. I am nothing without my Lord. I have done nothing and can do nothing without my Lord. He gives me every breath and heartbeat. He is the author of every success and victory in my life. He has provided to me every bit of wisdom and knowledge that I have, even though it is so small compared to what it could be. It is to Him that I owe all thanks, all honor, all praise, and all trust and respect. It is me that should be relegated to the back seat. Maybe then the journey would more quickly and effectively lead me to righteousness. Glory be to God!

Ezra 4:38-40 (Esdras LXX)

“But the truth abides and is strong forever. The truth lives and rules unto ages of ages. There is no partiality or prejudice with the truth, but it does righteous things, distinct from all wrongdoings and evil. All are pleased with its deeds, and there is nothing unjust in its judgment. For strength, dominion, authority, and majesty belong to it unto all ages, and blessed is the God of truth.”

Encouraging Words

In the Orthodox Church, we have a saying, “All truth is God’s truth!” It is interesting how much this passage aligns with Paul’s passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13. God is love and He expects us to live our lives both in His love, but also imparting of His love to our neighbors. If Jesus gave His life for mankind out of love and we are to love our neighbor then shouldn’t we also be willing to give our life for our neighbor. The same goes for truth. If God is truth and He desires us to grow into the image of His Son, then shouldn’t we also be willing to live our lives in His truth and portraying that truth to our neighbors, even if it means our death? Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

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

Jesus ushered into existence a whole new age. His incarnation became the beginning of the kingdom of God amongst us. We do not have to wait for some event in the future for we are living in His new age. And what an age this is. We were poor and He preached the living gospel to us. We were brokenhearted and He healed us. We were captives to sin and death and He set us free. We were blind and He gave us our sight again. We were oppressed and He gave us liberty. What must I do to partake in this kingdom? Believe in Him. Trust in Him. Obey Him by loving Him and my neighbor. Glory be to God!

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

Why was it so important for Jesus to go off into the wilderness after His baptism? First it fulfilled the prefigurement of Him in the travel of the Jewish nation through the wilderness for forty years. But more importantly, it sets the stage and the example for each one of us who are baptized into Him. After our baptism, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and will spend the remainder of our lives walking through the wilderness of this temporal life on our journey to our promised land. Glory be to God!

Luke 3:21-22

When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”

Encouraging Words

I will never to be able to be like Christ even though it is my desire, for He is God and I can never achieve that status. However, He chose to become like me and take on the form of humanness, fully and completely. He did not need to be baptized to cleanse Him from any sins because He was sinless. He chose to be baptized so that I, and everyone else like me, could follow Him someday into the waters of baptism that have been blessed by Him forever. He not only paved the way and set the example for me to follow, but He showed me that when I followed Him into baptism that I too had the Holy Spirit descend upon me, and that I too had the Father address me as His beloved son because I was not adopted into His family. Glory be to God!

Matthew 19:21

Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

Personal Challenge

Every one of us has a ball and chain attached to our spiritual leg that holds us back from being all that we can be for Christ. For some, like this young man, it is wealth and possessions. For some, it is the prestige of our position or the position in life that we hold or aspire to. For some, it is family or friends. For some of us, it is our pride. Whatever the case, God wants our unfettered commitment to Him so that we can follow Him wherever He leads. It is a lifelong journey of determining what is holding us back and letting go of it. Only I can do that for myself. This changes as we continue our journey because new fetters get uncovered. Therefore, we are never fully there. Sometimes it is difficult to know what is holding us back, but if we continue to seek Him He will reveal it to us. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner. Teach me to forsake all that is earthly and in the way of my following you!

2 Corinthians 5:14-15
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Personal Challenge
Am I compelled by the love of Christ and His willingness to die for me, as well as every other human being, to stop living for me and to live for Him? Unfortunately, the evidence of my life does not point to this conclusion as much as I wish it would. Christ died for me. He died for all. And He asks that I die with Him, for Him and my neighbor. What kind of death does He want from me? Death to this world and the things of this world. Death to myself and always trying to have everything revolve around me. Death to sin, and therefore, death to spiritual death itself. That which results is life; abundant life, joyful life, spiritual life. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.

Mark 1:35

Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.

Personal Challenge

Is it important for me to carve time out of my busy schedule to spend it with my Lord in prayer and meditation? It is so important that even Jesus, God Himself, spent time with His Father on a regular basis. Should I do any less? Absolutely not. I can find focus in times that I spend with my Lord. I can find peace. I can find joy. Do I do this as much as I should? Absolutely not. But I can choose to work at it. Glory be to God!

Luke 10:41-42

And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Personal Challenge

I believe that all of us has a little bit of Martha in us as well as a little bit of Mary. Our disposition in life ultimately comes down to which one we are willing to feed and nurture. Martha gets all caught up in the busy-ness of life, the Lord is coming over to my house and I must make sure that it is spotless and that I have the most awesome meal prepared for Him, and I need to be the hostess with the mostest, etc., etc., etc. None of this is bad in and of itself. But in this process, the Lord comes and goes and Martha has missed the opportunity to sit at His feet and partake of His presence, love, and mercy. Mary, however, abandons all of the cares of the visit and sits at His feet, soaking in every word, every expression, and every moment of having Him available.

Most of my life has been struggling with the Martha in me and trying to live as Mary in the presence of both my Lord and my loved ones, my neighbors. And I know that his will be a struggle until the day I die. I must continue to learn the balance between being responsible with that which has been placed under my stewardship and being present, fully present, with those who are in my life. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!