Daily moments of reflection using the verse of the day from Logos Bible Software, The Bible App, and Sojourners Email. I’ll post these as often as I do them to share my growth and hopefully inspire growth in my readers as well. Each day I’ll post the verses followed by a brief reflection.
May these reflections allow you to see the heart behind Xvangelical.
26 January 2024
He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in YHVH.
Psalm 40:2-3, NRSV
Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
1 Samuel 3:10, NRSV
The steadfast love of YHVH never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23
REFLECTION: Do you ever feel you’ve done enough to put yourself outside God’s love and mercy? I often feel that way for a variety of reasons. The primary one is a general sense of unworthy-ness.
I rarely feel worthy of God’s love and mercy. Reflecting on my early life, I don’t recall this being an issue. I developed this later. Its roots are found in my voyage through evangelical Christianity.
The version I found centered around doctrine teaching that we are all worthless to God. We are all vessels made for God’s destruction and wrath because we can’t stop screwing up or sinning. Every time I sinned, the cascading guilt over my sin and the sense of shame and condemnation was overwhelming.
I never stopped to consider that Jesus wasn’t merely an escape plan for our wretchedness but that He is God’s way of telling us that we are worthy! If we weren’t worthy of God’s steadfast, unending love and mercy, then no reason would exist for Christ.
Jesus came into this world because God sees us as worthy.
Sure, we tend to make messes (plural intentional) in our lives. Yet, in every mess, regardless of how miry, God’s steadfast, unending love and mercy are also there because of God’s faithfulness, not our own. God is always near and calling; we’re the ones trying to create distance.
We’re like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, hiding in the bushes with our religion covering what we see to be as detestable to God. Yet, God was walking in that same garden to pursue those God loved and saw as worthy. God still does the same today.
25 January 2024
Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 7:24-25, NRSV
Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7, NRSV
REFLECTION: Our Father, my great daily, no, moment-by-moment struggle is within. We know in our minds and hearts the right we want to do, yet in our flesh, we fail. Our only hope for redemption is Christ.
May the transformation of our minds begin the redemption of our bodies from the works of death. May we walk boldly into righteousness. When we’re overwhelmed with anxiety and worry may we come before you, thankful for what you’ve done, and receive the peace we need for the moment.
One of my greatest struggles is with anxiety. This verse from Paul to the Philippians is rarely a comfort in times that I’m in anxiety’s grip. However, I’ve found that it’s principles can be an aid. When I’m anxious, focusing on the good with a thanksgiving heart seems to ease my anxiety and bring peace.
A similar practice helps with my failures as well. When I realize what I have with thanksgiving my desire to sin diminishes.
24 January 2024
O [YHVH], our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
Psalm 8:1, NRSV ([]mine)
And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
1 John 5:14, NRSV
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Ezekiel 34:16, NRSV
REFLECTION: Our Father, it is apparent that your glory is found in how you bring justice to our existence. Your name is majestic in all the earth because you seek the lost and bring back the strayed. Your heart desires those our society considers outcasts. You hear their cries because their cries reach to the heart of your will.
Your justice destroys those who have grown fat and strong on the backs of the lost and strayed. You seek the lost and strayed by eliminating the people and systems that have made them so. You bring an end to the oppressor in favor of the oppressed.
Unfortunately, we often side with the oppressor because we benefit from their oppression. We reluctantly admit that we receive these benefits and, therefore, turn a blind eye to oppression in our midst. We do this because the oppression benefits our tribe and what we see as right, forgetting that often the way we view right and wrong is the opposite of your own.
Your justice ends the estrangement of the outcast by eviscerating the systems that oppressed them and those who run them. This is your will to see justice for the oppressed in the face of their oppressor. Your glory shines from above the heavens when this occurs.
May we find ourselves siding with the lost, the strayed, the estranged, the outcasts, and the oppressed rather than with those getting fat and strong from systems of oppression.
23 January 2024
Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6, NRSV
“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9-13, NRSV
On this mountain YHVH of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
Isaiah 25:6
REFLECTION: Our Father, you prepare a table and invite all peoples to it. You’ve designed the gospel to bring all of humanity into your family. The only exclusivity is the inclusivity of it. You desire a relationship with all you’ve created.
Our prayers should be an extension of that relationship. When we pray, we recognize who you are, where you are, and what you are doing in the world around us. Touching upon your heavenly will while exacting your kingdom in our world is the lynchpin of our relationship with you. Your kingdom is expressed in our existence as food and drink to those who hunger and thirst and mercy to those who need forgiveness.
Your will and your kingdom are our deliverance from the evils that come in times of trial and the perseverance and growth of our faith as we endure those same trials.
As our faith grows, our anxieties are easier to bear because we realize, like little children at their parent’s table, our needs will be met by one who loves us more than we can hope or imagine.
22 January 2024
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.
Matthew 5:14, NRSV
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:37-38, NRSV
REFLECTION: Our Father, the harvest today, as it was in Christ’s day, is still plentiful and needs laborers to work it. Work remains for those of us who call ourselves Christian. The work of the harvest begins in us. We must live redeemed and reconciled to God in Christ by grace through faith before we can labor.
Christ said that he was the light of the world, and that we are the light of the world. We shrink back from what this means because the implications frighten us. God dwells IN us. As our application of that realization grows, our light will shine brighter. We become the unmistakable and undeniable city on the hill that draws people to Christ and the divinity waiting to manifest in themselves.
We actualize Christ within us and become the light of the world, just as Christ is, and the harvest will be plentiful. Our redemption will shine through in unimaginable ways. We will be the change this world desperately needs to receive its redemption.
21 January 2024
My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.
Song of Solomon 2:16, NRSV
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.
James 2:5:7-8, NRSV
REFLECTION: Our Father, I’m afraid that often our patience is in the wrong things. Christ pastures your flock according to your will for the sake of your will being done on earth and your kingdom coming on earth. This is for our benefit and for the benefit of all you’ve created.
But, I think we’ve got this a little mixed up.
We expect a spectacular, universe-shattering event that ravages the heavens and the earth and brings swift, painful, everlasting destruction to our enemies when we read of the coming of the Lord. Yet, James compares it instead to a farmer’s crop coming after the early and late rains.
My wife and I have farmed a small garden a few times. The growth of the crops isn’t a spectacle, more a slow, yet sudden production of the plants. Growth comes after the work … and the wait. Our growth in Christ is the same.
The coming of the Lord into our lives is aimed at producing the substance of God’s will and kingdom into this world through us. God values the entirety of creation and sent Christ to redeem it all, not just humanity. God is redeeming creation through us and in spite of us which is why the coming of the Lord requires so, so much patience.
May we be patient and receptive to the coming of the Lord in our lives so that we may impact this world as vehicles of God’s will and God’s kingdom. We are a redemptive force in this world in Christ. As such, we redeem not only humanity, but the whole of creation.
20 January 2024
Now if you are unwilling to serve [YHVH], choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve [YHVH].”
Joshua 24:15, NRSV (Logos, [_] mine)
So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:7, NRSV (Bible App)
Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
Psalm 34:14, NRSV (Sojourners)
REFLECTION: Our Father, I’m willing to serve you and you alone. However, the way Christianity is practiced in my culture provides a confusing mix that shrouds what serving you should look like. We’ve mixed practices borrowed from the cultures of which we left and those we encountered here while developing entirely new ones altogether.
All seem foreign to the gospel proclaimed by Christ Jesus to me.
So, I’ve lived the pursuit of love, which seems to resonate in my soul as good. I pursue love by doing good and seeking peace for all. This means I’m compassionate and empathetic with friend and enemy alike. Your gospel truly teaches that we have no true enemies among humanity.
Instead, our enemies are the spiritual forces in play that deceive humanity and those powers that oppress us in our quest to serve you. Other people aren’t my enemy, but should be recipients of my love. Doing good is treating every other person the same way in which I would hope to be treated if our circumstances were reversed.
I’ve led my family in serving you in this manner. By faith through grace we trust that you will give growth to the good that we’ve sown. I commit myself more to serving you by loving, doing good, and seeking peace for all others, even those I despise.
Mark West, Xvangelical 