Sunday review: September 20-25

The love of God is more than a sentimental feeling to enjoy. It is a powerful force that demands a response. Decide how you’re responding to his love as you remember and share some of this week’s posts.

September 20
Worship is powerful stuff. In God’s presence we are aware of all that he has forgiven and forgotten about our mistakes and failures. In his presence we are renewed and feel the vigor of his strength that allows us to embrace the opportunities ahead. And in his presence we realize the fullness of his love.
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September 21
Some of us had great fathers, and many did not. Sometimes our relationship with our human father clouds our understanding of our Heavenly Father. And no matter how good we are at parenting, we are a distant second to the love, grace, mercy, support, and generosity of God the Father.
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September 22
In Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul opened with a line that we need to stop and consider: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Paul wasn’t repeating a comment from a hospice worker. He wasn’t talking about physical diseases like cancer, heart malfunction, or a raging virus we have all seen bringing someone we love to the end of life on earth. He was speaking to all of us living today.
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September 23
Paul prayed we would have the strength to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of his love and know the love that surpasses knowledge. Just try to take that in. God gave us specific measurements more than once: Noah’s ark, the tabernacle, the temple, etc. Details were and are important to God. But here we are not given any numbers. We have no ability to quantify the vastness of God’s love, yet Paul prayed that somehow we could take it in.
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September 24
We recite the Lord’s Prayer and then forget what we just prayed: “thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” John is very clear that Heaven is filled with rich diversity, and in unity these various worshippers bow before one Lord. Yet we often forget that here on earth, week after week and day after day, that same unity is to be lived out. And this is a public act. You can’t live diversity privately.
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September 25
God’s penchant for variety stands in stark contrast to the copycat efforts seen in so much of our popular culture. But if we fail at producing real diversity, surely we can celebrate what God has created. We can join or at least cooperate with the efforts of conservationists to protect it, and we can embrace or at least respect the differences among our neighbors. We can replace our fear with love for the person unlike us, a beautiful human created by a God who insists that everything need not be the same.
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Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash