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Today’s Scripture ~ Colossians 1.6-8 (NLT)
6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.
7 You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf. 8 He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
Wisdom Story
A deacon rebuked his elderly pastor one Sunday morning before the service. "Pastor," said the man, "something must be wrong with your preaching and your work. There's been only one person added to the church in a whole year, and he's just a boy." The pastor listened, his eyes moistening and his thin hand trembling. "I feel it all," he spoke, "but God knows I've tried to do my duty."
On that day the minister's heart was heavy as he stood before his congregation. As he finished the message, he felt a strong urge to resign. After everyone else had left, that one boy came to the pastor and asked, "Do you think if I worked hard for an education, I could become a preacher-perhaps a missionary?" Again tears welled up in the pastor’s eyes. "Ah, this heals the ache I feel," he said. "Robert, I see the Divine hand now. May God bless you, my boy. Yes, I think you will become a preacher."
Many years later an aged missionary, after serving more than a half-century in Africa, returned to London. His name was spoken with reverence. Nobles invited him into their homes. He had added many converts to the church of Jesus Christ, reaching even some of Africa's most savage chiefs. He was the esteemed missionary and Bible translator Robert Moffat, the same Robert who years before, as a small body, had spoken to the pastor on a Sunday morning in the old Scottish church.
Comments
A Christian can be defined in different ways. One is that he or she is a person faithful to Jesus Christ. The Christian may not be esteemed by others as popular, right, or successful. His or her motives and skills may be called into question. However, the spirit of a true Christian aspires for faithfulness above all other things. That God approves of the Christian is the Christian’s chief satisfaction in this life and preparation for life hereafter. Indeed, such faithfulness is one with love, for it is a loving faithfulness grounded in affection for God and the other.
The true, spiritual Christian, however, unlike the unspiritual in mind, does not reduce faithfulness to God to works for God. The spiritual Christian is glad to evidence faithfulness in works, but that one does not work in order to prove faithfulness, rather the work is resultant of a deeper loyalty of heart to a personal intimacy and inward sharing with Christ. The most apparently noble works are in themselves no proof alone that the spiritual Christian is faithful to God, for divine faithfulness is first and foremost not to working for God but to God.
Brother Lawrence (b. 1610), a Carmelite monk, experienced this faithfulness to God among the most mundane tasks and without losing hold on God through the work. He wrote of his working in the monastery kitchen, “We can do little things for God. I turn the cake that is frying in the pan for the love of him. And when I have turned it, if there is nothing else to call for my attention, I worship God. I have arrived at a state where it is as difficult for me not to think of God as it was at first to get used to it.”
Suggested Reflection
How do you live out faithfulness to God in your daily life?
How does the priority of faithfulness to God contrasts with other priorities in our culture?
Brian is available to respond to requests pertaining to seeking a Spiritual Director, his speaking, doing classes, workshops, or retreats for churches or other spiritual groups. He will inform regarding how to receive his other writings or offer replies to comments or questions.
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*Brian K. Wilcox lives with his wife, Rocio, and their two dogs, St. Francis and Bandit Ty, in Clearwater and Punta Gorda, Florida. He is a United Methodist pastor and vowed member of Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community in Georgia. His passion is living a contemplative life and inspiring others to experience a deeper relationship with Christ through contemplative prayer and living.
*Quote from Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God is from Bernard Bangley. Near to the Heart of God.
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