I am “processing” with a hungry heart and wanting to learn. I continue to learn about these truths with gratitude. 2 Peter 3:18 — “To God be the Glory” — Linda

Readers’ Choice (Originally published February 5, 2016)

Faith, like generosity, grows when a person transfers their focus outside of themselves. By prioritizing those around us we experience growth—the same happens when the object of our faith becomes our heart’s joy and priority. When generosity and faith combine a person experiences the glory of the two greatest commandments: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great. — John Chrysostom

The season of Lent, which begins next Wednesday, is marked by fasting. “In Scripture, we see that fasting is a sign of sorrow over sin, a sign of repentance, and an aid to prayer,” observes Kevin P. Emmert. Yet if these were the only reasons to fast it would not have made sense for Jesus to fast 40 days before beginning his ministry—Christ had no sins for which to be sorrowful or repentant and lived his life in direct communion with the Father.

In his article—titled as a call to action—A Lent That’s Not For Your Spiritual Improvement, Emmert writes,

The truth is Christ didn’t forego privileges and battle for humanity for only 40 days. The scene of Jesus in the wilderness is a synecdoche for his entire early life—and ultimately his incarnation… Christ made himself nothing by becoming a servant. He did not use his divinity to his own advantage, as Paul put it, but largely to walk a life-long path of self-sacrifice.

Christ’s whole life was lived on behalf of others, a continuous pursuit of others’ wellbeing. And Christ’s fast in the wilderness is a crucial example of that reality.

The ancient Jews expected the Messiah to grow in power and control—instead Jesus grew in wisdom and favor with God and man. They expected him to conquer and overthrow—instead he sacrificed and served. Emmert continues, “If we want to imitate his life and his fast to the degree we can, then we should consider fasting on behalf of others—that is, for their benefit and blessing.”

Perhaps this is why Jesus insisted that he desired “mercy, and not sacrifice.” Part of Christ’s fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures was calling his followers to embrace God’s vision of fasting given through the prophet Isaiah:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps 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 him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Isaiah’s prophecy is one of total transformation—the salvation of marginalized and oppressed actuated by the people of God growing in faith. Fasting—sacrificing—in such a way that others benefit is the very way we ourselves grow. “The mercy of God is a proclamation made to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience at first hand,” writes the Pope. In a Lenten proclamation the pontiff continues:

In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy—counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer—we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need.

The glory of fasting is found in what it does for others. Maybe we fast from meat or coffee and donate the money we would have spent to organizations who feed the poor. Maybe we give up plastic for the benefit of the environment and those most harmed by its decay. Maybe we abstain from time-wasters like online video-streaming or non-essential iPhone apps to invest in relationships we don’t normally have margin for. Regardless of the steps we take by God’s grace, Emmert reflects,

Lent is not just about personal holiness. Nor is it about pursuing simplicity of life for its own sake. Lent also has a remarkable social dimension. As pastor and columnist Chuck B. Colson said, “Lent gives us the opportunity to move towards our neighbor in charity” because it “emphasizes simplicity for the sake of others.”

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 40 (Listen – 3:50)
Psalms 15-16 (Listen – 2:06)

This Weekend’s Readings
Jeremiah 41 (Listen – 3:36) Psalms 17 (Listen – 1:58)
Jeremiah 42 (Listen – 3:44) Psalms 18 (Listen – 5:47)

Weekend Reading List

• A Lent That’s Not For Your Spiritual Improvement. Kevin P. Emmert for Christianity Today.
• Lent—Why Bother? Multiple authors examine Lent from a Protestant perspective, for Christianity Today.
• Repairing the Breach: Discipleship and Mission in a Global Economy. Free eBook featuring Lenten reflections which examine the causes of economic injustice and our role, both personally and corporately, in unsustainable patterns of consumption and self-interest.
• Pope Francis’s Message for Lent 2016. Transcript via The Catholic Herald.

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

In the middle of this time when we are politically divided, the one thing we can gather around is the mandate to pray for our political leaders. As we pray we find the unity our country so desperately needs to see and experience. — Emily

Readers’ Choice (Originally published April 13, 2016)

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. — 1 Timothy 2.1–2

“You don’t actually need a regression analysis to see that hate, not love, is driving the changes in American politics,” writes Ezra Klein. The (well documented) deep divides between political parties in the U.S. have grown at alarming rates.

When people are caught in a system dominated by hate there is an opportunity for Christians to participate in redemption. The preponderance of brokenness in our world today, both foreign and domestic, should drive us to prayer with extraordinary vigor. Yet we are often reticent to get involved in politics.

N.T. Wright, commenting on why the New Testament needs a command to spur Christians toward praying for political leaders and those under their rule, explains:

For many Christians today, particularly those who (like me) have grown up in the Western world and have never known war or major civil disturbance in our own country, this often seems quite remote…. Yes, we’d like our politicians to use our tax money more effectively, we grumble about some of their policies, but what they do doesn’t drive us to our knees to pray for them, to beseech God to guide them and lead them to create a better world for us all to live in.

Many Christians who are reasonably content with their country are tempted to think that praying for kings and governments is a rather boring, conformist thing to do. It looks like propping up the status quo.

Far from seeing prayer as the easy way out, Scripture challenges us to hold it as the most complex, efficacious, and important thing to which we can give ourselves.

Where we know victims by name we can bring them before God. Where we know of great needs, pain, or injustice without knowing any of the victims or leaders serving them, by name, we can repent. Wright concludes:

In the New Testament, the call to prayer is also the call to think: to think clearly about God and the world, and God’s project for the whole human race. Don’t rest content with the simplistic agendas of the world that suggest you should either idolize your present political system or be working to overthrow it. Try praying for your rulers instead, and watch not only what God will do in your society but also how your own attitudes will grow, change and mature.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 39 (Listen – 3:11)
Psalms 13-14 (Listen – 1:43)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

I remember reading this devotional as I was preparing for the funeral services for my mother-in-law who died of cancer at a young age. The words were a reminder of God’s truth at just the right moment: He was with me as I wept, but was also reminding me of the hope we have in Him. — Rob

Readers’ Choice (Originally published July 18, 2016)

But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.” — Matthew 28.5-6

If, as Jill Lepore has said, “watching people shoot one another has become an obligation of American citizenship,” then watching people around the world weep in the wake of terror has become an obligation of global citizenship.

We want to look away. Every few weeks I spend a day writing from a coffee shop nestled 8,200’ up in the Rocky Mountains. Inside The New York Times gets stacked upside down whenever images of terror take over above the fold. After watching, I realized it’s not the employees, but the customers who reposition the paper.

Jesus did not look away. When faced with the brutality of death, Jesus walked toward it—and wept. We must reflect on this—God, broken with us at the brutality and injustice of our world.

Then—when everyone thought it was too late and that God had, yet again, missed his opportunity to make everything all right—he called out Lazarus from the grave. What was lost was restored. Injustice of death’s sting replaced by the celebration of resurrection.

And so we cling to this hope. English poet George Herbert said the promise of resurrection is that death is no longer an executioner, but a gardener. “When he tries to bury you, he’s really planting you, and you’re going to come up better than before.”

And so, for today—for a world shattered by terror—a meditation from from Psalm 46:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Pause and reflect.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Pause and reflect.

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Pause and reflect.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 38 (Listen – 5:18)
Psalms 11-12 (Listen – 1:59)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

This one was such a kick in the gut, knowing that at the Cross, hell came down and could not break the grip of Christ’s love for me. I needed to hear all over again how great that cost was. — Scott

Readers’ Choice (Originally published March 23, 2016)

Then Jesus said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” — Matthew 26.38

The Son of God, who rhythmically withdrew from all human contact to pray, now asks his disciples to journey with him into the garden. He did not want to be left alone.“Father, take this cup.” The prayer of Christ would go unanswered.

For the first time in all of eternity, “Jesus Christ turned toward the Father and there was nothing there but the abyss,” remarks Timothy Keller. “There was nothing there but the darkness that opens out into an infinite nothing. He turned, expecting heaven and the Father, and there was hell.” Blood vessels ruptured under stress—his body being forced toward death long before the cross—as the weight of sin fell upon our savior. Keller explains:

As he began to walk, he began to experience the wrath of God. He began to actually experience God turning away from him. How does God punish sin? The Bible tells us (it’s almost poetic justice) the sinful human heart wants to get away. It wants to be away from God. It wants to be able to be its own master. So the way God punishes sin is to give the heart what it wants.

Jesus received what we deserved—what we have earned. From his birth to his resurrection, Christ did for us what we are unable to do. He loved God fully and loved man perfectly. He gave his life that we may live. Though we see this, we have trouble reorienting our lives in response.

We do not want to accept such a sacrifice. We do not want to cost of our sin to be so high. We do not want to live indebted to grace so deep. Christ’s love shines through the night, even while our love flickers in the wind. Keller concludes:

We don’t trust him. We’re afraid he might not have our best interest in mind, that he might ask us to do something that won’t be really good for us. So on the one hand, we don’t really trust him, but on the other hand, we don’t really trust ourselves. One of the reasons why we don’t give ourselves wholly and utterly and completely is because we’re afraid of failure.

Here is a love that hell came down on. His love for you—hell came down on it—and it didn’t eat through it. His love for you, hell came down on it, and it didn’t break it.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 37 (Listen – 3:25)
Psalm 10 (Listen – 2:13)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

The Tolkien quote hit me for I too have suffered in my life from church leadership. For years I have wanted to take up pitchforks and torches and storm the doors of various churches from my past. And in recent years I have quoted Matt 23:3 often. As I read the essay the weight of God’s grace hit me. So I am working through my past as an act of will, inspired by love. — Brian

Readers’ Choice (Originally published July 13, 2016)

[Jesus instructed,] “Do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do.” — Matthew 23.3

Jesus was fantastically under-impressed with the religious leaders of his day. And yet this didn’t diminish his love for God, faithfulness to live according to the Scriptures, or passion for the Church in the slightest.

Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase of the Bible, highlights the reasons behind Christ’s frustration and the way he resets the conversation on failed leadership:

Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules… They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help.

Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do.

Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to his son who was thinking of leaving the church, confessed, “I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests.” Even still, the elder Tolkien revealed, he would not leave the church over failed clergy.

His reasoning is profoundly similar to the argument Christ makes: “For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more—remembering my own sins and follies.”

Leaders of the church fail because they are not the leader of the church. They are, like you and I, fellow sinners and sufferers who sit under the authority of Christ. So how should we respond when church leaders let us down? By grace. This is, of course, the heart of Christianity—and a choice—as Tolkien reminds, “faith is an act of will, inspired by love.”

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 36 (Listen – 5:54)
Psalm 9 (Listen – 2:21)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.