Everyone is reevaluating their priorities. With all the upheaval in society, we have to ask, “What matters most?”
For us, Jesus Christ is the paramount priority. Our first desire is to know and be known by him. “To live is Christ . . .” Paul says (Phil. 1:21). In a time of resignation and reluctance, we enter a season of Recommitment in November.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Jesus, you said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). I know, and you know better, that my love for you has faltered. My heart and soul are bent toward self. My mind is easily distracted and my strength fails. But I know you are gracious. Forgive me. Show me loving kindness. Reform my heart and soul, mind and strength, that I may be fully devoted to you. Amen.
Word: I Peter 2:9-10, ESV
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Meditation
Acceptance and belonging are undeniably and fundamentally human. Certainly their power is pronounced in their absence, in rejection: whether it is the person whose attention you need but don’t have, or the law firm that hasn’t called you, or the date that didn’t call back, or the fraternity that didn’t give you a bid, or your own voice in your own head. Perhaps for you it was religious judgment, or an angry ex, or recent weight gain but, deep down, don’t we have a primary need that seems to get triggered by any sense of rejection?
Sometimes it is deserved, sometimes not—but all rejection in some form or another feels deserved. And life in fear of rejection can make paralytics of us all.
On the other hand, acceptance is sometimes deserved, but undeserved acceptance is God’s operating principle of grace. It somehow changes guilt into assurance and makes beauty out of ugly things. It strikes us when we are weak, not strong. It meets us in pain and restlessness. It meets us when we feel that our exclusion is deeper than usual, when our disgust at our exclusion has made us intolerable company. It meets us when longed-for progress does not appear, when old compulsions re-emerge, when despair destroys joy and courage. Grace has the uncanny ability to accept our most unacceptable moments.
In these darknesses, God says, “Because of Jesus, you are accepted. You belong to Me. You don’t need to try to do anything right now. Don’t seek after anything; don’t perform anything; don’t capitalize; don’t intend. Just be. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.”
Of course you are flawed and sinful and, most of the time, not that great of an investment! But you are more accepted and loved than you can know. This is because in Christ, you are chosen: you are part of “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you have called me chose, royal, holy. May my life reflect the calling and claim you put on my life and so share that same precious calling to the people around me. Amen.
Prayer
Lord, make me bold to run the way of your commandments. Help me to stand still before your presence. So fill me with your presence and power that I may carry it into the world. Amen.
Benediction
The Lord preserve us from all evil; the Lord preserve our souls. The Lord preserve our going out and our coming in, from this time forth, and even forevermore. Amen. (Ps. 121:7-8)