Devotion
Love Thy Neighbor
Frances Taylor
I find this passage interesting. Hate goes against God's laws. God is love, so there is no hate in God. Even in the story of Cain and Abel, God marks Cain so that no one will kill him. So how can we hate? It's okay not to like someone, we all do that, but hate implies that we wish someone evil. That's not okay.
To love our neighbor means that we don't wish him any evil. This doesn't mean that we have to approve everything our neighbor does. No, not at all, in fact this passage tells us it's okay to rebuke someone, even a friend or family member and not get involved in behavior contrary to God's law. Going back to Cain and Abel, revenge is also contrary to God's will for us. So much violence would be avoided if people didn't seek revenge.
As I mentioned the other day, today, a person who feels disrespected often gathers friends to "get even" with that person. This leads to a larger group of friends getting even with the others and so on and so on. Feuds of this sort have become commonplace among many groups of young people as we have become such a "them" and "us" society. Some feuds seem to last one generation to the next and often people don't even remember when the bad feelings began, nor do they know the cause. How do you want to be treated? How do I? If I want to be treated kindly, with respect, then it is my responsibility to treat others the same. It's not always easy to love those we don't like, but that's what God not only expects of us, but commands.
Prayer
Compassionate God, you love us all in spite of our weaknesses and sinfulness. Help us to treat others with the same compassion with which you treat us. Amen.
Night Prayer
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Inspiration
Sin rules our lives until we accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. When we invite Him into our lives, our old sinful heart dies, and God creates within us a new one, where sin no longer rules our life; God does! Our thoughts and actions begin to change because we no longer desire a sinful lifestyle. We joyfully devote our lives to serving Him and inviting others to understand His promise of salvation.
Prayer
Dear Lord, we are sinners born again and recreated to live according to Your will. We are grateful for Your love and the peace we experience by abolishing our old sinful self. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Devotion
Satan Has Been Defeated
Frances Taylor
Salvation and power have come with Christ and Satan has been defeated. Sin and death have been conquered by the actions of one man, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, both human and divine who came into the world to bring the Good News of salvation by living, dying and rising for us. As Christians we claim to believe this but our actions sometimes deny it. Unfortunately, people seem to resurrect Satan all the time. We allow him to lead us away from God, forgetting the way to the Father that is love, and giving in to Satan's path of hatred, anger, pride, lust, chaos and destruction.
Satan, of course, doesn't present these as bad things, he makes them seem attractive. He presents sin as goods to be desired, as things to make us happy or give us pleasure. It can be hard to stay on the path that leads to God when the world seems to be crowding us and pushing us off of it. How easy it is to forget the sacrifice that bought our freedom! Which of us ...
Morning Prayer
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Inspiration
It is right for us to defer to others and to rejoice with others when they have cause to rejoice over some blessing in their life, instead of sorrowing before them over some problem in our life. It is right also to weep with those who weep, showing compassion and feeling for them in their grief instead of "dancing joyfully before those who mourn" as if insensitive to their sorrow.
Prayer
Give me a discerning spirit, Lord, to know when to rejoice and when to weep. Let me show concern for others and their situation and life events instead of just focusing only on my own. Let me show true compassion and genuine joy in the right way and time to others. Amen.
