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Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture
Reading
“Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation
but rescue us from the evil one” Matthew 6:9-13
Devotional
Two
Truths
Pastor John Ortberg writes that there are two truths about human beings that matter deeply.
“We are all of us rag dolls. Flawed and wounded, broken and bent. Ever since the Fall, every member of the human race has lived on the ragged edge. Partly our raggedness is something that happens to us. Our genes may set us up for certain weaknesses. Our parents may let us down when we need them most. But that’s not the whole story. We each make our own deposits into the ragged account of the human race. We choose to deceive when the truth begs to be spoken. We grumble when a little generous praise is called for. We deliberately betray when we’re bound by oaths of loyalty. Like a splash of ink in a glass of water, this raggedness permeates our whole being. Our words and thoughts are never entirely free of it.
“Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation
but rescue us from the evil one” Matthew 6:9-13
Devotional
Pastor John Ortberg writes that there are two truths about human beings that matter deeply.
“We are all of us rag dolls. Flawed and wounded, broken and bent. Ever since the Fall, every member of the human race has lived on the ragged edge. Partly our raggedness is something that happens to us. Our genes may set us up for certain weaknesses. Our parents may let us down when we need them most. But that’s not the whole story. We each make our own deposits into the ragged account of the human race. We choose to deceive when the truth begs to be spoken. We grumble when a little generous praise is called for. We deliberately betray when we’re bound by oaths of loyalty. Like a splash of ink in a glass of water, this raggedness permeates our whole being. Our words and thoughts are never entirely free of it.
We are tempted and we succumb to temptation.
We are rag dolls, all right.
But
we are God’s rag dolls. He knows all about our raggedness, and he loves us
anyhow. Our raggedness is no longer the most important thing about us. We were
not created ragged. From the beginning there was a wonder about human beings
that caused God himself to say “Very Good” as he looked at them in the
department store window. There was a wonder about human beings that caused the
writer of Genesis to say they had been made in God’s own image. There was a
wonder about human beings that caused the psalmist to say they rival the divine
beings in glory and honor. There is a wonder about human beings still that even
all our fallenness cannot utterly erase.
Lord, amazingly, even when we yield to temptation your love for us
remains and your passionate desire for us grows us into likeness of your Son
will not relent.
Therefore, Lord, don’t let us yield to the temptation to fall into
something less than you have created us to be
There is a wonder about you. Raggedness is not your identity. Raggedness is not your destiny, nor is it mine. We may be unlovely, yet we are not unloved. And we cannot be loved without being changed. There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures. There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is a love beyond reason.
This is the love of God. This is the love with which God loves you and me. Love is why God created us in the first place. Theologians speak of the fact that God created everything freely, not out of necessity. This is a very important idea—it means that God did not make us because he was bored, lonely, or had run out of things to do. God did not create us out of need. He created us out of his love. C. S. Lewis wrote, “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.” But the full extent of God’s love was shown not so much when he chose to create us. It was shown when we had become sinful and unlovely.
For God is fully aware of our secret. He knows that we are rag dolls. The prophet Isaiah said it thousands of years ago: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6, NIV) Every one of us has become ragged, so damaged by sin and guilt that it seemed like the logical thing left was to discard the human race. Toss it out and start over. But this God could not bring himself to do. So God proposed reconstructive surgery. God proposed to take the human race to where he could change filthy rags and remove the guilt and sin that left the objects of his love so unlovely. There really is such a place. It is called the cross.
There is a wonder about you. Raggedness is not your identity. Raggedness is not your destiny, nor is it mine. We may be unlovely, yet we are not unloved. And we cannot be loved without being changed. There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures. There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is a love beyond reason.
This is the love of God. This is the love with which God loves you and me. Love is why God created us in the first place. Theologians speak of the fact that God created everything freely, not out of necessity. This is a very important idea—it means that God did not make us because he was bored, lonely, or had run out of things to do. God did not create us out of need. He created us out of his love. C. S. Lewis wrote, “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.” But the full extent of God’s love was shown not so much when he chose to create us. It was shown when we had become sinful and unlovely.
For God is fully aware of our secret. He knows that we are rag dolls. The prophet Isaiah said it thousands of years ago: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6, NIV) Every one of us has become ragged, so damaged by sin and guilt that it seemed like the logical thing left was to discard the human race. Toss it out and start over. But this God could not bring himself to do. So God proposed reconstructive surgery. God proposed to take the human race to where he could change filthy rags and remove the guilt and sin that left the objects of his love so unlovely. There really is such a place. It is called the cross.
©
2015 by Zondervan. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Visit JohnOrtberg.com
for more about John Ortberg's work and ministry
Lord,
don’t let us yield to temptation, instead lead us to yield to your
reconstructive surgery for our lives
Question to Consider
What most tempts you to do, think or say things that fall short of "image bearing" child of God, whom God is training you to become?
Prayer
“Lord, I suspect that my greatest temptation is the temptation to “settle”, to settle for the immediate gratification of food, a drug, a cheap tryst, a dishonoring compromise, anything that is easier than living into the kind of person you want to train me to become. All too often I choose easy and lazy over hard but good, painful but beautiful. Lord help me to choose the good and the beautiful. . . . . even if, especially if, it’s hard. Amen”
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
“Lord, I suspect that my greatest temptation is the temptation to “settle”, to settle for the immediate gratification of food, a drug, a cheap tryst, a dishonoring compromise, anything that is easier than living into the kind of person you want to train me to become. All too often I choose easy and lazy over hard but good, painful but beautiful. Lord help me to choose the good and the beautiful. . . . . even if, especially if, it’s hard. Amen”
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
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