Stressful times

17 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , ,

An argument broke out among the disciples over which one of them should be regarded as the greatest.

But Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles rule over their subjects, and those in authority over them are called ‘friends of the people.’ But that’s not the way it will be with you. Instead, the greatest among you must become like a person of lower status and the leader like a servant. So which one is greater, the one who is seated at the table or the one who serves at the table? Isn’t it the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

“You are the ones who have continued with me in my trials. And I confer royal power on you just as my Father granted royal power to me. Thus you will eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones overseeing the twelve tribes of Israel. ~Luke 22:24-30 (CEB)

Being a disciple was becoming stressful. The pace clearly had quickened during this three-year course in discipleship. The crowds had grown larger and demanded more. The lessons to be learned often seemed over the heads of the disciples. Jesus talked more and more about his own death and what was to follow. Frankly the disciples did not understand it, and the more confused they became, the more frustrated they became. We can appreciate that phenomenon. It happens to us. When we are under a heavy load for a long period of time, we often become frustrated, impatient, and sometimes not very nice to be around. We even begin to compare ourselves to others and begin to think that we deserve a little bigger slice of the reward pie than even our closest friend.

That kind of reaction to stress may explain why the disciples began arguing about who was to be regarded as the greatest among those who followed Jesus. Jesus shattered their hopes of achieving special status or special reward (Luke 22:26).

The world’s system of reward has nothing to do with the disciple’s system of reward. A disciple of Jesus Christ is called first to be servant of all, and the leader is to take the lowliest position of service. This system turns the world’s concept of leadership upside down. The first disciples found it hard to understand and even more difficult to live by such a value system. But Jesus seems to say there is no other way. Disciples serve. ~From A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, Rueben P. Job

Heavenly Father, help me to keep my focus on whatever is true, not on the things that I perceive to be true. In my trials ease my frustration, bolster my patience and help me love those You have placed in my life with Your heart. Help me to serve others this day so that I can be Your hands and feet to the world. Amen.

A true fast

13 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , , ,

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ~Matthew 5:6 (NIV)

Today begins the season of Lent. Many churches observe this time of preparation that leads up to Easter. Some people even choose to use the season as a time for penitence and self-examination, study, and spiritual discipline. Perhaps the discipline most commonly associated with Lent is fasting, which can take many forms, such as giving up entire meals, or certain foods (like meat), or radically changing a diet, in order to be made mindful of one’s humanity and of God’s providence.

Isaiah 56 tells us “Isn’t this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke? Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family? … If you open your heart to the hungry, and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted, your light will shine in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noon.” (Isa. 56:6,7,10)

So I ask you, do you hunger and thirst for justice? True fasting is not just depriving ourselves of privilege but also sharing sacrificially to bring an end to the cycles of inequality, an end to violence and solution to starvation.

Heavenly Father, create in me a hunger and thirst for Your righteousness. Enable me this day to be Your hands and feet to those who live in darkness.  Help me love with Your heart and shine with Your light so that the darkness may be like the noon day sun. Amen.

From the ends of the earth

09 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , ,

You whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant; I chose you and didn’t reject you”: Don’t fear, because I am with you; don’t be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will surely help you; I will hold you with my righteous strong hand. ~Isaiah 41:9-10 (CEB)

“There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another’s wounds. Let’s remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness.” ~From Bread for the Journey by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Lord, in my weakness and vulnerability I find you. Please take my trials and help me bear fruit. I thank you for communities that You have provided through which I can feel Your love for me. Guide my steps, make the ground firm beneath my feet for my hope is in You. Amen.

Spirituality

05 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , , ,

He replied, “You give them something to eat.”

But they said to him, “Should we go off and buy bread worth almost eight months’ pay and give it to them to eat?”

He said to them, “How much bread do you have? Take a look.”

After checking, they said, “Five loaves of bread and two fish.”

He directed the disciples to seat all the people in groups as though they were having a banquet on the green grass. They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them, broke the loaves into pieces, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. Everyone ate until they were full. They filled twelve baskets with the leftover pieces of bread and fish. About five thousand had eaten. ~Mark 6:37-44 (CEB)

“Spirituality includes seeing our work as more than making a living (as important as that is): work becomes a genuine opportunity for service, a way of contributing to other people’s lives. Spirituality is the responsibility we show our surrounding and our environment, the respect we have for our forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, and seashores. It is especially involves our attitude toward our everyday life, the way we spend our time. Are we merely wasting or killing time, or are we attempting to discover the sacred dimensions of life all around us?

In a basic sense spirituality is about the quality of our relationships, the ways we care for each other, including the ways we welcome those who are different form us into our lives and families. All the great spiritual traditions agree that spirituality encompasses all those dimensions of our lives that make us human; that is, not only prayer and worship, but our work, play, sexuality, gifts, talents, and limitations too.

Spirituality is influenced for the Christian in a most significant way by the person and ministry of Jesus; the Sacred Scriptures, which tells his story; and the life of the ongoing community that bears his name. Through Jesus we have been given an awesomeness that our time on this earth is sacred, that we share a sacred journey, that our God has entered human history and taken on a human face. Christian spirituality includes the many ways throughout history that Christian individuals and communities have responded and continue to respond to the awareness of God’s transforming love.” ~From Mentoring by Edward C. Sellner

Through involvement with others I find blessings. God never intended for us to journey through this life alone. It is through our interactions with one another that we can glimpse God.

Heavenly Father, help me to be Your hands and feet to the world. May all I do this day be reflection of Your loves to those I meet. May I be a blessing to others. Amen.

 

Those who have gone before

27 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , ,

Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro, Midian’s priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God’s mountain called Horeb. The LORD’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn’t burn up. Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up.

When the LORD saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

Moses said, “I’m here.”

Then the LORD said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground.”  He continued, “I am the God of your father, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Then the LORD said, “I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain. I’ve come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land, a land that’s full of milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites all live.Now the Israelites’ cries of injustice have reached me. I’ve seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them. So get going. I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. ”

 But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain.” ~Exodus 3:1-12 (CEB)

“The Bible and saints who have gone before us give ample evidence of God’s consistent call to each of us. The Bible and the saints who have traveled this road before us also make clear the universal nature of God’s call to all humankind. No one is left out, exempted, or overlooked. All are of equal worth and all are called. While we may think of certain vocations as callings, God appears to consider all of life as our calling, and that includes every honorable vocation.

Regularly practicing disciplines of the holy life puts us in position to hear God’s call clearly. Those disciplines include prayer, fasting, community and personal worship, acts of mercy and compassion, and faithful living.

Hearing is an important step in saying yes to God’s call. But once we hear, we must still decide whether we will go where invited or sent. In other words, hearing may be the easy part of saying yes to God’s call. Once we have heard and counted the cost the most difficult task remains. However, with deep faith in the living God who calls us, the only reasonable response is to say yes. For in our best moments, we know God will ask us, only us, to say yes to an invitation that is right and good for us.  Listen closely, think deeply, pray fervently, and you will be lead to the right answer to God’s invitational call. In my experience the right answer is always yes. The good news is that even when I was unable to give the right answer, God was patient and gave me opportunity to grow in faith until I was able to say yes and to claim another part of my inheritance as a child of God.” ~ From A Guide To Prayer For All Who Seek God, Rueben P. Job

Hearing God’s call is an everyday experience for me. Answering Him is a moment by moment decision. First I need to hear his voice. Sometimes I need to look to others’ example to help me along my way.

Heavenly Father, help me to discern Your will in my life as I seek you though regular discipline of holy living. May the scriptures I read in the Bible help to tune my ears to hear Your Word. Amen.

Saying yes to life

25 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, this is the reason that I don’t stop giving thanks to God for you when I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation that makes God known to you. I pray that the eyes of your heart will have enough light to see what is the hope of God’s call, what is the richness of God’s glorious inheritance among believers, and what is the overwhelming greatness of God’s power that is working among us believers. This power is conferred by the energy of God’s powerful strength. God’s power was at work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and sat him at God’s right side in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority and power and angelic power, any power that might be named not only now but in the future. God put everything under Christ’s feet and made him head of everything in the church, which is his body. His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way. ~Ephesians 1:15-23 (CEB)

“Daily personal prayer, examination of conscience, and participation in a faith-sharing group: these smaller practices can be of real benefit to us in sustaining the larger practice of saying yes to life, saying no to destruction. Together, they help us to understand, judge, and evaluate our daily choices and decisions in light of their relation to our daily choices and decisions in light of the relation to our ultimate happiness, as individuals and as humans in community. If we are to enhance and build up the capacities for a good, wholesome, and holy life, we must learn to say yes to what affirms and renews wholeness and life. And we must learn to say a related no to what induces and brings about destruction and ruin. In this practice, we are invited and challenged to make a fully conscious voice about who it is we are and who it is we shall become.” ~From “Saying Yes and Saying No” by M. Shawn Copleand in Praciting Our Faith, ed. By Dorothy C. Bass

Heavenly Father, I thank You for the faithful friends you have placed in my life that helps me to decipher Your will in my life. May I ever be willing to hear what You have to say. Amen.

Perspective

20 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , ,

Why spend money for what isn’t food, and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy? ~Isaiah 55:2 (CEB)

“Seeking God first is not just good advice; it is the only way to joyful and faithful life in companionship with the One who made us and loves us without limit.

When I saw my first airplane as a child, I knew at once that I wanted to fly. I became a farmer, student, pastor, husband father and still wanted to fly. Throwing caution and common sense to the wind, I joined a flying club and soon was ready for my first solo flight. I will never forget the thrill of breaking the bonds of gravity. When the aircraft broke free from the ground and slowly climbed, I was bursting with the joy of realizing a dream I had nurtured for a lifetime.

Flying still holds a thrill for me, although I have not had the controls of an aircraft for over thirty-five years. When flying club members asked why I quit flying, I responded then, ‘I would rather fly than eat, but my children would rather eat.’ It is costly to fly! Several decades later, I realize something else was going on: a growing love and desire for God and a growing awareness of stewardship. I still look up when a light place of flight passes overhead and for a moment feel the sensations of flight, but then I rejoice in the companionship of the One with whom we can all break bonds holding us down and rise to heights greater than we imagine. ~From A Guide to Prayer for All Who seek God by Rueben P. Job

Heavenly Father, help me to seek You in all things. Help me to seek You first. Amen

Companions in the desert

19 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , , ,

We are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives. ~Ephesians 2:10

“Hospitality is the virtue which allows us to break through the narrowness of our own fears and to open our houses to the stranger, with the intuition that salvation comes to us in the form of a tired traveler. Hospitality makes anxious disciples into powerful witnesses, makes suspicious owners into generous givers, and makes closed-minded sectarians into interested recipients of new ideas and insights.

But it has become very difficult for us today to fully understand the implications of hospitality. Like the Semitic nomads, we live in a desert with many lonely travelers who are looking for a moment of peace, for a fresh drink and for a sign of encouragement so that they can continue their mysterious search for freedom.

What does hospitality as a healing power require? It requires first of all that the host feel at home in his own house, and secondly that he create a free and fearless place for the unexpected visitor. Therefore, hospitality embraces two concepts: concentration and community.” ~From The Wounded Healer by Henri J. M. Nouwen.

As I wander through life I stumble across other travelers looking for something. When I take a moment to visit I may find it to be a simply moment to freshen us to journey on or I may find a companion to travel life’s rugged roads for a longer period. I never know when I come across another traveler if it will be a brief encounter or deeper friendship. I am only asked to take notice of those whom I come in contact with as I travel along.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the travelers You have sent along the way. I thank You for the community You have given me. Help me to be ever aware of others that You may want in my life. May I always be open to new traveling companions. Amen

An adventure

15 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , ,

This is why I, Paul, am a prisoner of Christ for you Gentiles. You’ve heard, of course, about the responsibility to distribute God’s grace, which God gave to me for you, right? God showed me his secret plan in a revelation, as I mentioned briefly before (when you read this, you’ll understand my insight into the secret plan about Christ). Earlier generations didn’t know this hidden plan that God has now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit. This plan is that the Gentiles would be coheirs and parts of the same body, and that they would share with the Jews in the promises of God in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I became a servant of the gospel because of the grace that God showed me through the exercise of his power.

 

God gave his grace to me, the least of all God’s people, to preach the good news about the immeasurable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. God sent me to reveal the secret planthat had been hidden since the beginning of time by God, who created everything. God’s purpose is now to show the rulers and powers in the heavens the many different varieties of his wisdom through the church. This was consistent with the plan he had from the beginning of time that he accomplished through Christ Jesus our Lord. In Christ we have bold and confident access to God through faith in him.So then, I ask you not to become discouraged by what I’m suffering for you, which is your glory. ~Ephesians 3:1-13 (CEB)

“Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. We aren’t focused on the great mystery. Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy glib answers. That’s why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile. If the great mystery is indeed the Great Mystery, it will lead us into paradox, into darkness, into journeys that never cease… That is what prayer is about.” ~From Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr.

In the good news about the immeasurable riches of Christ we find a Great Mystery that promises us the adventure of a life time. If we aren’t in the middle of an adventure maybe we are missing something.

Heavenly Father, Help me this day to see with Your eyes, hear with Your ears, love with Your heart. Send me on a grand adventure as Your hands and feet. Amen.

Risky business

14 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by jennifermcintyreblog in Devotions Tags: , , , , ,

It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me. ~John 2:13-17 (CEB)

“To find in ourselves what makes life worth living is risky business, for it means that once we know we must seek it. It also means that without it life will be valueless. More than just a few find their most valued selves despite the risk, although the majority seem to be… people who don’t wish to make any trouble- not even the kind that’s expected. The majority shrewdly stay dull to what in them is life and has meaning. A few brave souls, however, do look within and are so moved by what they find that they sacrifice, from then on, whatever is necessary to bring that self into being.” ~From Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics by Marsha Sinetar.

What am I consumed with for God? Do I take any risks for God? Am I brave enough to step out on a limb for God?

Embolden me Heavenly Father to find who I am and what it means to be a child of God. May I not shrink away from understanding Your will for me life. Help me to love mercy, seek justice and walk humbly with you. Amen.

 

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