NOTE: Just a short update on the flooded mountain communities, including especially Lyons. Many areas are being cleaned up and remedied now, though for many people the flood could have happened just a few days ago. The scars will be visible in the canyons for several years. Our Synod provided a grant of $154,200 for the people in Lyons, which was distributed just before Christmas. Other relief efforts have also come in. We will be doing much more in the next few months as volunteers arrive to help with reconstruction. Our congregation hosted a holiday open house for the people in Four Mile Canyon last weekend – we catered the whole affair for 100 – 150 people. Our ladies were stellar! I will be taking a short breather in the next week or so; devotional writing may be spotty. Hoping you all had a great celebration of our Savior’s birth, and a most blessed New Year to all!
“Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.” Proverbs 27:14
Devotional Thought For The Day
Whether what we do for others is “good” or not is often determined by the one receiving our attention. The thing we do may be good, and may have the best of intentions, but if it is timed wrong, or delivered wrongly, it may not be received well. So the proverb which describes a loud, boisterous blessing of one’s neighbor – a good thing, with presumably good intent – which rouses one’s neighbor out of a deep and peaceful sleep in the wee hours of the morning. The blessing will not be counted as a blessing, but as a cursing – not something intended for the good of the neighbor but rather as something nettlesome and evil.
It is no different when we set out to do good things for others. We often approach such tasks from our own perspective, making sure that it is most convenient and easiest for us, assuming that since we are doing such a good thing others should receive it and accept it as such, regardless of the actual effect that it has on them. When the effect is less than helpful, perhaps even burdensome, we immediately consider the recipients to be ingrates and heels – perhaps even swindlers who really don’t have that much need if they are ungrateful of our efforts. All of this betrays the reality – we are doing the good not truly for the sake of others but for our own sake, and when our pride is not rewarded and inflated with the gratitude and adulation of the “needy,” we are wounded and angry. Such is often the case in our “doing good” – it is done with ulterior motives, with reluctance, for ourselves, and so it is not really “good” and loving at all!
Such is not the case with God. When He does good for us it is always out of love, with our greatest benefit in mind. He sends His Son to be our Savior. His Son lays down His life in bitter suffering and death for our sins, so that we might have forgiveness, redemption, salvation, cleansing, and renewal in love. His love for us is patient and winsome – bearing with us over the course of a lifetime as we slowly come to know Him and learn His ways. His love is eternal, and without conditions, as He brings us to eternal life in His heavenly kingdom. He is not put off by our pathetic ingratitude. When His love for us is inconvenient and discomforting it is always for our ultimate blessing, and only because it is absolutely essential – and often such love requires more, not less of God. So we come to have absolute confidence in His love, that all things are being worked together for our greatest good and blessedness – and we can have courage and confidence in all things knowing how His love is at work for us.
We should first rejoice in this love of God for us, and drink it in deeply. Then it goes to work within us so that we seek to love just as we have been loved by God. This includes taking into consideration all aspects of the other person’s perspective and thinking – so that when we do good to them it will most likely be received as such. I’m certain that I’ve met people who “do good” in such a way as to irritate and inflame another person – just so that they are then justified in being angry and cutting off all love toward that person. This is perhaps one of the most insidious and wicked forms of hypocrisy we can engage in. And we should have no doubt that God sees it for exactly what it is. We can repent of this, and turn to God for forgiveness, and He will surely grant it if we are sincere. And as we sincerely receive His forgiveness and love we will grow in sincere love and care for others. So let us take care in our “early morning blessings” – lest they be cursing instead. And let us do all that we can to make our blessing of others sincere, genuine, and real.
Prayer For The Day
Dear Lord Jesus, there is nothing but sincerity and genuine blessing in all that You do for us, including the great salvation You have given us. In all of Your providence over our lives You are guiding and directing all things for our greatest good and blessedness. Help us to be more like You in our thinking and our doing, so that our blessing of others might also be completely sincere and genuine, in keeping with true love. May we rejoice to be of some good to others around us, to the praise of Your love. Amen.