Devotional 2-25-11

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."   --Genesis 1:26

"The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope. --Wendell Berry (born in Kentucky in 1934, author and farmer)

Caution--this may get a little preachy!

What have you done today to care for the earth that God so lovingly provided for you and me? What did you do this morning with your empty cereal box? Toss it in the garbage? I know what you're thinking, Give me a break--it was just one cereal box! But look at it this way--what if every family in our state threw one cereal box into a pile. Would you tell your children or grandchildren to go play on that pile of boxes? Now add to that pile all the recyclable things you throw away in a day:

newspapers, magazines and junk mail,
egg cartons, Starbucks cups, fast-food cartons,
yogurt, cottage cheese, and other such containers,
peanut butter jar, soup and other tin cans,
plastic milk containers, plastic water bottles and soda bottles, aluminum cans,
glass jars, wine bottles,
cardboard boxes--the mac and cheese box, pizza box, toothpaste box, shipping boxes,
detergent bottles, shampoo bottles, ketchup bottles,
on and on and on..................

Still want to send the kids out to play in that pile of trash?

Recycling is not just for Old Hippies or New Age Seekers. Recycling is for everyone. Especially for those of us who claim to be God's people. Don't we want to take care of God's amazing creation?

If your community doesn't have a recycling program, demand one! There are certain businesses that provide recycling bins. It is not that much trouble to take your trash to those bins if you don't have curbside recycling.

How about your business? How about your church? Are we serious about "saving the earth" or not?

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.   --Cree Indian Proverb

Anita Gardner Farrell

Devotional 2-18-11

“Bragging about God”

How is your life different because you are a Christian? That is what I have been contemplating for the last two weeks. This has not been an easy task. I cannot remember a time that I did not believe in God. He was always there. But what if I hadn’t been raised in the church? What if my parents had not taught me to pray? How would my life be different? What different choices might I have made?

My faith grounds me. It gives me rules to follow. That’s good because I am a rules follower. I like knowing what the rules are -- knowing what is expected of me. I would like to say that I always follow these rules. Unfortunately the more I study the Bible and attend church, the more I find I need to work on. Hopefully this makes me less judgmental of others and keeps me humble when I invariably fall short. My faith gives me strength, not mine, but the strength that comes from God. I know God has carried me through some very difficult, very stressful times. My faith gives me peace, an inner core of calm. Yes, I get stressed. Can you be alive today and care about others and not be stressed occasionally? The difference is the inner core of peace that I can tap into during difficult times. The inner peace that come from God.

I believe that I am a different person than I would be without my faith. My priorities would be different and my values would be different, so I would have lived my life differently. I am a much happier person because of my faith. All of this is a gift from God. I need to thank Him for it all, but I also need to tell others that I don’t do things on my own--that what I do and who I am is with a lot of help from God!

So what about you? How would your life be different? How will you tell others? I will be saying, “With a lot of help from God!”

Margaret Williams

Devotional 2-11-11

Psalm 119:1-8

When I sat down with JM Kid’s Club one Sunday evening, I thought it would be neat to have the children take part in helping me with a devotional writing. We all know that inspiration comes in the most unexpected ways. The following is today’s Psalm excerpt, paraphrased and slightly modified by members of our Kid’s Club.


If you follow God’s rules, you’ll be eternally happy.
Blamelessness is like a chain, and someone else will be inspired by you.
If you do the right thing no matter what, you’ll be a happy person.
I will work hard to follow God’s light.
I won’t be embarrassed if I focus on God’s rules.
I will praise God and try to live a sinless life.
I will always try to follow God’s laws.
I hope that He doesn’t let me down or give up on me.

I would like to share with you that the children had no concern that God would ever let them down or give up on them, as mentioned in the scripture. I pray that all of us could emulate their faith. When the scripture is worded like this, I ask myself why it is so difficult to walk in God’s light. I feel sheepish, because it really can be simple. Had I chosen just to write something on this Psalm by myself, I doubt it would have been so perfect.


'Out of the mouths of babes oft times come gems’

Natalie Wray

Devotional 2-4-11

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Isaiah 58:6-7

Churches expend a great deal of energy trying to figure out how to worship. Should it be traditional or contemporary? Pipe organ or praise band? Chairs or pews? Ordered or spontaneous? Well-meaning people make passionate arguments that one form or another is somehow superior, whether superior is defined as more rooted in scripture and tradition or more likely to draw in more people.

I’m not pointing fingers—this is confession time for me. I’ve been in a lot of those discussions for several years, and have made some of those impassioned pleas. I want a worship style that is pleasing to me, that makes feel happy and good. I want to come to church, enjoy my time there, and leave feeling better.

I am convicted by this week’s lectionary passages, and particularly the reading from Isaiah 58, a portion of which is printed above. True worship, according to the prophet, is about more than ritual to make me feel better. True worship requires us to get involved, not only during the 11:00 a.m. hour, but the rest of the week. Piety, singing hymns, and praying, in and of themselves, will not bring about God’s kingdom of justice and righteousness. God expects us to act to make the kingdom a reality. Who will feed the hungry if not us?

Here are some startling statistics from Bread for the World, the non-profit hunger-fighting organization led by David Beckmann:

• 925 million people are hungry.
• Almost 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes. (That's one child every five seconds).
• In 2008, nearly 9 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday. One third of these deaths are due directly or indirectly to hunger and malnutrition.

Am I looking for a worship experience that will move me to participate in ending hunger? Or do I want worship to lull me into continued complacency?

If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. Isaiah 58:10-12

As worshiping Christians, we should be about the business of ending hunger. We’d better get busy.

Amen.

Jeff Taylor