Our Ever Present God
Sunday, November 3
Psalm 46
We witness destruction around us, sometimes very near us. Those who do not face rebuilding after tornados, wildfires, earthquakes, flood, illness, or heartbreak may yet sense fearful instability and violence in our culture, our nation, our family. We join all past generations in loss and danger, who also felt the very mountains could give way and fall into the heart of the sea.
To believe that God is our refuge is to not succumb to fear or cynicism, but to live his truth, to be filled with his strength and surrounded by himself in literally every circumstance. God is ever-present, in trouble and in peace, and is the help we seek.
Lord God, because you are ever-present, we will not fear. Keep us, we pray, that circumstances never gain power over us, but that we walk with you by faith. AMEN.
Our Righteous God
Monday, November 4
Psalm 119:1-8
“I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws” (v. 7).
This paean to God forms a bright trail of steps to know God, love God, worship him, and receive his joy as I carry out what he commands, with each step dependent on the last. Then the path turns joyfully and swirls into a perpetual, living circle of love among the Lord and all his own. Loving God and obeying him with all my being is not the fearful appeasement of some celestial micromanager, but my willing response to delightful, captivating love from the good God.
My blessing and peace are born of my learning and doing God’s righteous will. Pursuing anything with all my heart other than the true God will yield neither—including pursuing peace for its own sake.
Loving and righteous God, although I may have begun by praising you haltingly, now praise from my heart fills the air. You are forming me in teaching me your righteous laws, and I thank you for my new heart. Amen.
With All My Heart
Tuesday, November 5
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (v. 5).
Deuteronomy’s commandments call for remembering all that God has already done, and to consider soberly what keeping God’s commandments will signify to descendants not yet born. The words in verse 5 stand centrally in Jesus’s teaching millennia later—and forever.
It can seem daunting. How do I love God like this? I know my heart is not at every moment completely God’s. My soul and strength sometimes seek other loves.
This passage invites us to begin by absorbing the commandment into our hearts. Follow up continuously by speaking of it during the day, at night, on the road, with your children, by visual reminders. Then, before the ever-present God, we ask him to fill our heart, soul, and body with love for him. God himself, after all, is love.
Holy Spirit, fill my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength with love for God. Amen.
Then Do Unto Others
Wednesday, November 6
Mark 12:28-32
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (v. 28b).
There are not only the ten commandments we often refer to, but 613 commandments in the Bible! That is a lot to choose from!
In response to the same question the teacher asked Jesus, my answer might be, “To be kind to others.” Jesus’s answer was, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” He continued with a second, integrated with the first, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
God has indeed given the “Do unto others” commandments; I just would have put them first, not in the order Jesus did. Attempting to work my way to God in place of receiving his finished work? God’s order is to first love him completely, then to love others because of God’s love in me.
Lord, teach me to love you first, then to love my neighbor. Amen.
Once For All
Thursday, November 7
Hebrews 9:11-14
“But he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (v. 12).
This is not merely one more high priest with the annual offering of the blood of chosen animals in the Holy of Holies for the forgiveness of sins. This is an utterly unique high priest, the very Son of God, the last and only high priest, Jesus, offering his own blood once for all for the forgiveness of every sin of those who believe.
Once for all. Though I live long after temple sacrifice, I recognize I am as sinful as the ancients were, as incapable of redeeming myself as they, and washed clean by the blood of Christ to “serve the living God” (v. 14).
Redeemer, by your wisdom, permit me to grasp what the creation of your new covenant means to you. Fill me with the stunning beauty and truth of your “once for all,” with the utter necessity of your sacrifice to free me and transform me, and grant me everlasting life with you.
Lord, lead me to love you completely, and to love my neighbor out of your great love. AMEN.
Unfathomable Descent
Friday, November 8
Hebrews 13:9-16
Pondering Jesus’s incarnational birth in Bethlehem, recently I was struck by what an obscure place he chose to be born, the baby of unknown, untitled mother and foster father. Bethlehem was ninety miles uphill from Nazareth, yet for the eternal Son of God Bethlehem was an unfathomable descent.
For me to follow Christ, I must also descend, from aspirations to human acclaim and power, choosing humility with God, ministering within the church and to the world around me. And here in his death, Jesus cooperates with his executioners who are leading him outside t
he gates of the city to be crucified. Outside the gates were the refuse and waste dumps. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us”
(2 Corinthians 5:21) even in his surroundings.
Lord Christ, for love of you I will follow you outside of the centers of ungodly authority, bearing the disgrace you bore. Cause me to despise the shame, for the joy that is set before me. Amen.
Adventures With God
Saturday, November 9
Hebrews 13:20-21
In my early years, I was quite adventurous. At least, I thought I was. In more recent years, I have discovered an unfamiliar desire for more safety, less risk. If an “adventure” turned life-threatening, it would be understandable for me to want security. But my longing for stability grew even in peaceful circumstances. Was it advancing age? Had I somehow become cowardly?
Reviewing the matter with God brought an ironic answer: it had sprung from growing trust in God. Practicing reliance on God reveals two things: that in myself I am not equal to the risks of life, and “the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus…[will] equip you with everything good for doing his will” (v. 20).
With God’s invincible security for me and his unbreachable power in me to do good, then—let his adventures continue!
Our Lord, trusting by faith in you, I can humbly receive anew today your work and will. AMEN.
