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This year appears to be a crisis of authority. Daily Breaking News inundates us with news reports that suggest ever increasing challenges dealing with economics, racism, intercultural relationships, birth rights and citizenship and beyond all understanding. Conflicting interpretations bring forth deadlock. This causes strife among many people to grow weary and suspicious, and cynical and just plain tired of being tired from ongoing turmoil. Perhaps questions submerge even doubting whose guidance can we trust? Whose voice speaks the truth? Instead,what would it be like to see your life filled with worship in a place with a divine encounter? That encounter is God’s forever present activity in every detail that brings us as heirs of faith in Jesus.
Children of God are sustained, nourished, protected, blessed, loved, guided, and held in God’s care in this troubled world. God is in the story of life.This is in God’s Plan. Whatever disordered and competing stories or identities the world might have latched onto in the grind of daily life, we surrender it to Him. We begin with humble recognition in all situations of life, in all of its unique stresses and responsibilities that we acknowledge God as the master truth teller. For this reason we yield our skills, our time, and our labor in God’s care. We submit our doubts as an extension in prayer time which may generate a kind of godliness action within an unexpected time and place because Jesus brings wisdom even in places we least expect. His wisdom provokes us to press onward as faithful family members through our relationships, productivity, and success. This is not to say that our active work is glamorous, easy, or immediately rewarding. But it is to say, Christ abides in us as we abide in Him.
Since we are God’s beloved children, Jesus renews and reshapes God’s claim on us. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:11. And as the Peace of Christ fills our lives, he will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forward. For we have a host of earthly leaders in high place, but their kingdoms can bring about flawed kingdoms, and will rise and fall. Here is what we know, God’s Kingdom is eternal and is from everlasting to everlasting.
And so, the transformation of these earthly kingdoms (governments) comes only as there is spiritual transformation in the lives of those who lead our nations and through those who are citizens of God’s kingdom. There is spiritual peace in God’s kingdom, but that peace cannot be experienced by anyone until Jesus Christ takes up residence in their lives. As the Peace of Christ fills your life; he will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forever. The divine purpose for the world is that humankind is to serve in God’s vision. We are blessed accompanied by the One whose investment in us is far greater than our imagination. Our worth as family members in God’s care doesn’t rest in our frenzied productivity, but in His deep longing to grant us complete rest in Him. Amen.
Rev. Carole, Assistant Pastor
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