May 29, 2002 - June 14, 2002
Daily Devotionals

Wednesday 29 May
 
Luke 11:13

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”


Thursday 30 May

Luke 11:17-20

“Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall.  If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.


Friday 31 May

‘The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more’ (Romans 5:20)

Here we are told that an overflow of grace came in response to an increase of sin, that was brought on by the introduction of the law. Specifically, Law takes in the body of religious instruction communicated to the Jewish people through their leader Moses. This teaching contained many expressions of God’s will. It addressed many areas of human responsibility before God, resulting in an expanded awareness of how men and women should live. People saw that there were huge gaps in their religious practice, which they had not thought of before. In this sense, the law made sin increase.

There is a further sense in which law made sin increase. Since sin involves an attitude of insubordination to God, any regime that looks to subdue or legislate against that temperament will be met with hostility. When my children were toddlers, we (the parents) learned by hard practice, that many prohibitions only aggravated their disobedience. The effect of the law in Israel is exemplified in Paul’s description of its effect on him: ‘Once I was alive, apart from law, but when the commandment come, sin sprang to life.’ (Romans 7:9)

By the time Jesus came, the law had to a large extent, been co-opted by sin. Because sin does not submit to the reign of God in any way, it responds to it by pressing it into service. The final proof of this is that when the true meaning of the law appeared in Christ, he was crucified in the name of the law. ‘We have a law, and by that law he ought to die’ (John 19:7)

There are good living people who think their good living is very important, so important in fact, that they identify themselves with it in the same way that the Jews used their law to assassinate Jesus. Religious people are always in danger of thinking that their religion (their law) is sacrosanct, and not even God can be permitted to challenge it. When this happens in our experience, our law has become an instrument of sin. Our cup of transgression is full; our best practice has been ranged in opposition to God.

When the crucifixion of the Son of God was seen as a religious duty, sin had increased to hideous proportions, but at the very place where it mounted and menaced, grace increased all the more. This is good news indeed. Grace is not only greater than our disreputable sins, it is greater than our respectable ones. It is greater than those sins we love to put in religious clothes. Grace reigns over law.

May God’s grace be sufficient for our evil – and our good.


Saturday 1 June

Luke 11:21-22

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.


Sunday 2 June

Luke 11:23

“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.

Monday 3 June

Luke 11:24-26

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says,  ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”


Tuesday 4 June

Luke 11:28
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”


Wednesday 5 June

‘God is Spirit, and his worshippers must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24)

When Jesus conversed with the woman at Jacob’s well, she was made aware that it was no ordinary person with whom she spoke. Skilfully, and with great tenderness, Jesus brought her face to face with the truth of his person. ‘I who speak to you am he.’ He was inviting her to read in him, a revelation of God.

If the greatest reality in the universe is spirituality like that of Jesus, then everything else in the creation is resonant with purpose. We, who are personal, are therefore not out on a lonely trek across a harsh and indifferent terrain for everything about us in some way reflects the personality of God. The mountains, the stars, the breezes; sunsets, storms and calm lakes all speak something of God to us.

If the universe has a personal cause, my breakfast and dinner are graces. They come from someone. Beauty, touch, taste, smell, hearing – all express personality. The love of family and friends, these are not from no one – they are gifts. If God is a person, as revealed by Jesus, then life is more than existence, it is a relationship. Life is therefore a prayer; it has a context. It’s not a sentence, but a service.

Unless God is, and unless he is love as Christ taught, human love is nothing. You take your spouse in your arms; you cradle your infant, or hug your grandchild, and when you do you feel you are caught up in something quite transcendent. You feel you are engaged in something of utmost significance. You are right to think so – but not if the God of Jesus Christ does not exist. Instead, human love is ridiculous. We have been fashioned absurdly out of tune with our environment.

To meet God in Jesus Christ, is to learn that the world is the creation of an exquisitely beautiful Spirit. This discovery, invests living with new motives and new ambitions. Duties are no longer obligations, but inclinations. Responsibilities no longer spurs, but goals to eagerly strive for. The living water of Christ is the law of the Spirit of Life that sets the captive free from the tyranny of things, and circumstances. It is the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Let us drink long deep draughts from this spring. May God satisfy you with himself.


Thursday 6 June

Luke 11:29-32

“This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.


Friday 7 June

Luke 11:33

“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.


Saturday 8 June

Luke 11:34-36

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”


Sunday 9 June

Luke 11:39-41

“Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside [the dish] to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.


Monday 10 June

“Return his cloak to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in it. Then he will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God”
(Deuteronomy 24:13)

In Israel, and in the patriarchal age, life was seen as a succession of relationships. Each relationship bore its own claims on conduct. For example, a coat, taken as security by a money lender, was to be given back by sundown, so that the poor man would not have to sleep in the cold. Adherence to this expectation was considered to be Righteousness.

Another extraordinary example of Righteousness occurs in Genesis when Er, the son of Judah dies, leaving Tamar widowed. Judah instructs her to go home to her father’s house and wait till another of his sons, Shelah, is old enough; then he can be her husband.

Time passes and Shelah is grown but Judah fails to keep his promise to give Shelah to Tamar. So, taking matters into her own hands, Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and waits for Judah to come by. Judah fails to recognize her and she successfully seduces him – becoming pregnant. When the community realises that Tamar is pregnant, Judah threatens to put her to death, but she reveals that Judah is the father of her child. Judah then makes the astonishing confession: “She is more righteous than I, since I would not give her my son Shellac’ (Genesis 38:26).

Tamar was more righteous than her father-in-law, even though she prostituted herself, because she was more faithful to the claim of family relationships which called for her to raise up an heir for her dead husband.

When catastrophe came to Job and his family, his friends accused him of unrighteousness. “You stripped men of their clothes, leaving them naked. You gave no water to the weary. You withheld food from the hungry” (Job 22:5-8). But Job strenuously asserts his righteousness. “I have not rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune. I have always welcomed the traveller in my house. No stranger passing my dwelling has ever spent the night in the street” (Job 29 and 31).

Righteousness, in Old Testament times, consisted in the honouring of certain obligations that were expected in human relationships. Of interest among the many kinds of relationship, was the relation to the stranger. The appearance of a stranger at one’s gate brought into play a number of expected behaviours. The relationship was recognised when the stranger was taken in, fed and sheltered for the night.

Righteousness was predicated on relationships. Righteousness was sociological. This element of righteousness is always in danger of being lost. There is a tendency among all who would be godly, to reconstitute righteousness in a way that robs it of its sociological component. Jesus railed against the spiritual leaders of his nation because they had managed to be righteous without having to care about anyone but themselves. They had achieved a gutted righteousness that enabled them to be religious without being responsible.

The relational nature of righteousness is mostly plainly set forth in the gospel, when God “declares his righteousness.” By means of this self-same declaration, God lays hold of us. For he is just (righteous) and the justifier (one who declares righteous) those who have faith in Jesus.

May God deliver us from a weak, private righteousness, which is without passion or brotherly love.


Tuesday 11 June

Luke 11:42

“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.


Wednesday 12 June

Luke 11:43-44

“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.”
 

Thursday 13 June

Romans 3:21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has beenmade known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

(Righteousness from God can be characterised as God's pronouncement that the believer, through faith in Jesus, has met all divine requirements. Secondly, because this righteousness comes from God it cannot be a reference to anything good within us.)


Friday 14 June

James 4:6 God sets himself against the haughty but gives grace to the
humble.