Living in the Spirit
September 25, 2022
Scripture Reading:
Luke 16:19-31
Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” ’ –Luke 16:26-31
What does it take to make us do what is necessary to address a problem? The phone part of my cell phone went dead on me this morning giving me the message that I had no SIM card. My very first reaction was, “what time does Target open?” I cannot live without a telephone. The store was not opened yet. I calmed down a bit so I accessed, via my computer, my phone carrier explaining my problem. The woman who responded asked me a few questions and then instructed me on how to access my SIM card and guided me through cleaning it. I chatted back that I would rather take it to someone else to fix. She said let’s try this first and I following her patient detailed instructions removed the SIM card, cleaned it, and reinstalled it. My phone worked again. If I had followed my first instinct, I probably would have spent a lot of time and money for no good reason because dust seeped through the edge of my phone and temporarily blocked its working.
As the scripture above indicates, we, too, have had Moses and the prophets and Jesus, who did rise from the dead, and still, we panic and search the ways of the world to address our life challenges before we recall we are children of God and our first step in managing our life should be to touch base with God and take strength in knowing who we are and whose we are. If we live our faith, eventually, like Paul in 1 Timothy 4:7, we will be able to say, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Prayer: Lord, help me stay in touch with you through my daily spiritual disciplines so that I seek your guidance in all phases of intersecting with the world. Remind us all, we are in the world not of it. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.