Not So Random Acts of Kindness

  • September 13, 2021
  • /
  • Erin Newton

Scripture Focus: 2 Samuel 9:8
8 Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?” 

Reflection: Not So Random Acts of Kindness
By Erin Newton

I enjoy looking at posts tagged #RAOK. Random Acts of Kindness. It has become popular to capture these moments and highlight the goodness of humanity. For most, these actions are seen as going above and beyond what is required in social interactions. As Christians, extreme kindness should be part of our everyday life.

When David settled into his role as the king of Israel, he turned his attention to honoring the friendship he had with Jonathan. The conflict between the house of David and the house of Saul nearly wiped out an entire extended family. David asked to find any living heir of Saul. The sole survivor was Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan who was now lame because of the conflict.

The disabled community suffered greatly in the ancient world, often expelled as outcasts. Lameness required the disabled person to rely entirely upon fellow citizens. Mephibosheth, the heir of a former king, was one of these minorities. His lineage threatened David’s claim to the throne, but David did not treat him as an enemy. David was focused on creating peace and showing kindness.

Mephibosheth knew his limitations and came to David with humility. David did not have divine power to cure the man’s lameness, but he had the power to bring stability, security, and an inheritance to the son of Jonathan. Eating at the king’s table, Mephibosheth was treated as an equal to David’s sons.

Jesus is a greater king than David, never failing to minister to those in need. He did more than honor the outcast, he cured their disease. He did more than honor his fallen friends, he resurrected them. Jesus brought former enemies to his table as friends. Even today, he grants eternal security, everlasting peace, and an inheritance as a son or daughter of God. 

Our lives should reflect the work and person of Jesus Christ. He was never slow to cross the boundaries of social norms to meet the needs of the outcasts. Even when the worst of his enemies were abusing him, he prayed for their forgiveness. Loving our former enemies should not be conditional. We must do whatever we can to love our neighbors. “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.” Proverbs 3:27 


Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Be exalted, O Lord, in your might; we will sing and praise your power. — Psalm 21.14

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 8-9 (Listen – 4:52)
2 Corinthians 2 (Listen -2:13)

Read more about Praying Priestly Blessings — Readers’ Choice
One of the primary purposes of humanity, upheld throughout the entirety of scripture, is being a blessing to others.

Praying Priestly Blessings — Readers’ Choice

Read more about Loving God by Loving Others — Guided Prayer
When we act in God’s name to show love to others, we are also loving God by bringing glory to his name.

Loving God by Loving Others — Guided Prayer

Conflict’s Aftermath

  • September 8, 2021
  • /
  • Erin Newton

Scripture Focus:  2 Samuel 2:26
Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness? How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their fellow Israelites?”

Reflection: Conflict’s Aftermath
By Erin Newton

Polarized. This word is the constant summary of our life lately. Every area seems to be weighted down in conflict.  When we reflect on the darker parts of our history, we like to think they are moments in time, isolated and spontaneous. There is a failure to see the slow progression of change from good to bad. And the even slower progress back to peace.

If Israel’s monarchy was portrayed on a TV episode, the death of Saul would be followed by a short commercial break and the reign of David would begin triumphantly. David was anointed in Hebron but his reign as the king of Israel was slow and filled with more turmoil. The conflict between Saul and David personally had ended but the ramifications continued. More hate, more blood. The house of David and the house of Saul were eager to carry out vengeance and retribution in the name of the lords they served. David was the rightful king and Saul was no longer a threat. The conflict should have ended.

Often there are rippling effects and continual consequences to mindsets that are hardened through a prolonged conflict. Racial discrimination, political rivalry, gender inequality, denominational intolerances, and the suspicion of public healthcare measures are areas that can fester conflict and hatred deep into a soul. Even when bridges are mended briefly, there are those who will continue to seek the destruction of perceived opponents. This can happen through what we say or what we encourage. It can be through our actions to cause pain or the turning of our eyes from someone in pain.

Still, some conflicts have found no lasting resolution. In these times, believers can look to the moment we shifted our allegiance from this world to Christ. This should alter how we function among those who are constantly at war. When did we forget he is the Prince of Peace? Let us ask God to replace the festering anger in our hearts with love. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. — Psalm 84.9

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 2 (Listen – 5:07) 
1 Corinthians 13 (Listen – 2:23)

Read more about Blocking the Way of Wickedness
We don’t always have a choice about working with or living among wicked people, but we can choose how we respond.

Blocking the Way of Wickedness

Read more about The Best We Can Do
The best we can do—in our strength and wisdom—may not be God’s best for us.

The Best We Can Do

The Law that leads to Grace :: Guided Prayer

  • September 27, 2019
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Galatians 3.24
So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.

Reflection: The Law that leads to Grace :: Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

We have looked at grace from several different angles this week. As we move through this weekend, let us pray through these responses to Paul’s description of the Law’s inability to save us.

The Law that leads to Grace
Oh, God, may we not rely on the Law, except to point us back to grace.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

We love your Law, Lord. But we know that the Law does not, will not, and cannot justify us.
We rely instead, Lord, on faith.

Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” 

We cannot live by the Law. If we could, then Christ’s death was for no purpose.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” 

Christ’s death opened the path of grace through faith to all people. In Christ, God came near and extended his hand to us. And his arm was not too short to save. He saved us not based on anything we have done, but in response to his own promise and purpose for all who have faith. 

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Help us, Lord, to remember…
The Law exists to point us to, and cause us to cry out for, grace.
Those who think they can live by the Law are deceived and hopeless. Cursed.
Those who are hopeless in everything else, clinging only to grace, are raised to life. Blessed.
Whatever form of moralism we seek to add to grace is a failure of faith, doubting the value of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Thank you, God, for grace through faith that cannot be downgraded and a Law designed to lead us to grace.
May the felt reality of Christ’s incomparable grace extended to us, cause us to season our lives, our tongues, our actions, our prayers, and our inner being with grace.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Cry of the Church
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 23 (Listen – 5:38)
Galatians 3 (Listen – 4:39)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Samuel 24 (Listen – 4:48) Galatians 4 (Listen – 4:13)
1 Kings 1 (Listen – 7:52) Galatians 5 (Listen – 3:22)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 emails with free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about Downgrading Grace
Grace, once gained, can be forgotten and replaced with a smug and damaging form of self-righteousness.

https://theparkforum.org/843-acres/downgrading-grace/

Read more about Of Grace and Thorns
What is important about Paul’s thorn is not what it is…but the sufficient grace of God that sustains Paul.

Of Grace and Thorns

Downgrading Grace

  • September 26, 2019
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Galatians 2.21
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

Reflection: Downgrading Grace
By John Tillman

Grace, once gained, can be forgotten and replaced with a smug and damaging form of self-righteousness. We can forget too easily from what Christ saved us and at what cost. This is a dangerous form of amnesia and Paul will not allow the Galatians or even the prominent leaders of the church to fall into it.

Paul shows us a model for biblical confrontation in Galatians. He is direct. He is personal. And he is restorational. 

Galatians may not seem as stridently corrective as some of the passages from the letters to the Corinthians, but Galatians is the only letter of Paul to contain all correction and no praise. Paul gets straight to the point and does not hesitate. He confronts the Galatians head on telling them that he is amazed they are abandoning the gospel of grace through which they were saved. And he relates his story of boldly opposing Peter to call out this downgrade of grace and cheapening of the gospel.

Paul got personal with the Galatians and with Peter. When confronting them about favoritism, Paul quoted Peter’s testimony from Acts 10.34 saying “God shows no favoritism.” When he confronted Peter, he discussed personal practices and details with Peter, telling him exactly what Paul considered to be wrong about what Peter was doing.

Paul never lost sight, even in a corrective mode, of the unity and grace for all found in Christ. Paul’s often quoted passage about being “crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me,” demonstrates a shared life in Christ and is a part of his dramatic speech to Peter on his visit to Antioch. 

Christ’s sacrifice is at the center of Paul’s argument against any other action being any part of salvation. The sufficiency of faith in Christ cannot be reduced. Paul would not allow the council at Jerusalem, or Peter, or the Galatians to downgrade grace through faith. When we downgrade grace through faith, we chip away the cross of Christ, making it an additive to our life rather than the sole source of our life.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalm 100.2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 22 (Listen – 5:22)
Galatians 2 (Listen – 3:44)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about Solus Christus
If you want to understand the love and compassion of God, look no further than Jesus the Christ.

Solus Christus

Read more about Grace Which Rises
This is the grace which rises unto us: both our sins fall forever, and grace abides forever.

Grace Which Rises

Grace Displaces Retribution

  • September 24, 2019
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: 2 Samuel 20.9-10
Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” Then Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. Amasa was not on his guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab plunged it into his belly.

2 Corinthians 13.11-12
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Reflection: Grace Displaces Retribution
By John Tillman

The kind of humility and gracious forgiveness often shown by David is as greatly out of place today as it was in his own time. 

Those who cursed David during his flight from Absalom had no right to expect anything but death and destruction on David’s return. Retributive violence was the norm. But David risks displacing retribution with grace. One example is the cursing of Shimei. 

Shimei was a member of Saul’s family who cursed David, accusing him of being a murderer and claiming God was punishing him for his sins against Saul’s house. David acknowledged that perhaps God had sent Shimei to curse him and submitted to the humiliating rain of dirt, stones, and curses. Abishai would have cut Shimei’s head off but David prevented it. 

Shimei’s accusations are at least half-true. David was a murderer of Uriah and was in the company of murders such as Joab and Abishai who had murdered Saul’s former general, Abner. Shimei, whether in true repentance or simply to save his skin, repents of his former actions, and David spares him from Abishai’s sword a second time.

When seeing a beloved leader pelted on Twitter with half-truths, many respond as Abishai, “let me go over and cut off his head.” Some “Joabs” in ministries have engaged in just these kinds of violent threats against those who have accused pastors and ministries of wrongdoing, even when the accusations were far more accurate than those of Shimei.

As David tried to put back together a shattered nation, he continued to reach out to enemies in peace. When another rebellion arose from Sheba of Bikri, David chose Amasa, who had commanded the army of his rebellious son, Absalom, as his new army commander to put down the rebellion.

Whether by incompetence or from some other motive, Amasa takes too long and David sends Abashai after him. Joab murders Amasa and takes his job back to put down the rebellion.

Like David, we live in a culture of violence. 
We, like Christ, must be ready to rebuke violence.
Through the Holy Spirit may we have the grace to say, “No more of this!…Put your sword back in its place. For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”
It may seem impossible and impractical to replace retribution with grace but this is the “full restoration” that Paul calls chuches to enact.
May we do so in His grace.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Love the Lord, all you who worship him; the Lord protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily. — Psalm 31.23

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 20 (Listen – 4:51)
2 Corinthians 13 (Listen – 2:19)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about A Christian Response to Offense
There is nothing in the Christian faith more strangely counter-cultural, and more practically difficult to live out, than how the New Testament instructs us to deal with offenses and with offenders.

A Christian Response to Offense

Read more about Dealing with Joab
One of David’s greatest failings as a leader might be failing to deal with Joab. If you are a leader, you may attract a Joab. Beware.

Dealing with Joab