Tag Archives: God’s Love

Parenting

Living in the Spirit
July 8, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Genesis 25:19-24 

The children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’ So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,
‘Two nations are in your womb,
   and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
one shall be stronger than the other,
   the elder shall serve the younger.’ — Genesis 25:22-23

So begins a saga of deception and intrigue. The two boys in Rebekah’s womb are Esau and Jacob—the first the father’s favorite and the second the mother’s. Jacob was a manipulator. We would probably call him a shrewd businessman today. Esau became an outdoorsman apparently a hard worker with little guile. How much of those traits were in their DNA and how much was taught them, I wonder?

Early childhood specialist indicate that the character of most children is well on its way to formation by the time they are three years old. Whether we like it or not, most adults rear their children like they were parented. For those of us who had “good” parental role models we laugh in later years when we recognize some of their traits in ourselves. Usually it is the same trait that once irritated us when we experienced it with our mother or father. Even when ones parental role model was very “poor” or even worse abusive, those traits are very, very hard to change. Change is, however, not impossible.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if such change could be realized before a child is born, if we could reach the teenage mothers and fathers and help them learn to postpone parenthood until they were more mature, if we could give new parents the tools to nurture their own babies, if we could make wholeness a reality for broken spirits?

We can, you know. God empowers us with the ability to love our neighbors and that love coupled with a whole lot of hard work and patience and dedication can change lives as well as move mountains.

Prayer: Father and Mother of all, instill in us the traits of your love and make us champions for all your children even those who are parents. 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 American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Grace

Living in the Spirit
June 19, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Romans 6:1-11 

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  – Romans 6:1-4

Paul had quite a challenge bringing the gentiles into the Body of Christ. Coming from a markedly different culture than the Jewish one, they worshipped many different gods or none at all. Their lifestyles among other things included eating foods that were taboo for Jews as well as worshipping various effigies. Paul had to walk a fine line with them and the Jews who had become followers of Christ who still found meaning from their culture related to their Jewish faith. Paul had to help them all identify what was culture and what was sin, what was of God and what was not.

Our scripture today deals with another of those challenges, I call it fuzzy logic. If God’s love and forgiveness were somehow tied in with grace then the more we sin the more grace we would receive, right? These Roman Christian were having a hard time understanding that God’s grace is a gift freely given with no strings attached. In actuality the gift of grace frees us from the bounds of sin allowing us to develop habits of loving ourselves and others that we could never have done without grace.

We still struggle with this issue today. We sometimes even have the need to prove ourselves more righteous than another because we cannot accept that God’s grace and love have no strings for us or for anyone else. We are never closer to God because we perceive that someone else is further from God than we are. On the contrary we are actually turning our backs on God anytime we turn our backs on another. Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.—Matthew 25:45

Prayer: God of Grace, create in me a clean heart and a right spirit so that I may love more fully. 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 American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.