Home > Reading > NALC Devotions – May 22, 2017

Today’s readings: Deuteronomy 8:1-10; James 1:1-15; Luke 9:18-27

Test Question: Of all the activities in which people participate, which sorts of activities have the most significant impact in human life and history?

The world might answer: “political activities” or “economic activities.”

The Church might answer: “celebrating the Eucharist” or “prayer.”

To the world, the Church’s understanding of reality seems inexcusably outdated and mythical. And the world seems increasingly impatient with the Church’s unwillingness to accept an exclusively modern view. The world’s understanding of reality and the Church’s understanding of reality are deeply at odds. James saw this coming. He wrote: “…friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4).

Through the deepening division between the Church and the world, God is testing us. Will we continue to trust that all reality was finally and fully manifested in the love given through cross and resurrection, that we have been baptized into the full reality of those events, and that we have been called to live the truth of reality by loving others?

So that we may endure to the end, God is using the hostility of the world to clarify and strengthen our faith.

Prayer: O God, keep us faithful. Amen.

Today’s devotion was written by Gary Blobaum, Pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church, in Sumter, SC.

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