19 June 2026 - where our treasure is

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

Do the things we are seeking, those for which we invest energy and exert effort, have expiration dates? The more vicious of earthly pleasures tend to be the most short lived, requiring ever greater stimulation to in order to approach the highs they provided at first. But even the more virtuous forms of pleasure, such as are common in admirable friendships and families, can't last forever. We may delight in a game or a good conversation but we know that such things cannot last, that trying to draw them out too long in fact often ruins them. We may appreciate the beauty of a sunset, a painting, or a musical composition, but this too is transient. We may feel as though we are touching something central to reality when we attain to scientific knowledge or especially to wisdom. But even in these cases we are still typically focused on the sphere of temporal reality, on changing things, doomed to pass away. 

We tend to horde earthly treasure as though it can provide a bulwark against future trouble. We don't use the things of earth as if they are passing away but rather cling to them as though they can protect us forever. This leads us to a constant seeking of more, a constant dissatisfaction with what we have, as though if we just somehow get and keep enough we will finally be happy. We become like the man who built ever larger silos to store his surplus gain only. It no longer provides a utilitarian value we can put toward more important things. Rather, the mental and physical cost of maintaining it becomes a problem in its own right. 

But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

It is a blessing to store our treasure in heaven not only because in our future life it will be so unimaginably good to possess it, to possess God himself, but also because it is such a blessing to here and now let go of the white-knuckled grasp with which we hold things destined to pass away. When we use and hold temporary things knowing they are temporary in order to pursue things that are eternal we not only pursue the right path, but we also avoid much needless hardship and disappointment along the way.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

There is a real way that seeking heaven as our treasure makes the our earthly pilgrimage more heavenly. The more our hearts are set on God the more he will even now fill them with himself. By contrast, when we try to fill them with anything other than God we will always experience emptiness and gnawing hunger for more. God alone offers the bread that truly satisfies our hunger, the living water that alone can quench our thirst. Haven't we put up with the false promises of substitutes for long enough? Maybe we would think to answer that we have tried to seek treasure in heaven without finding it very satisfying, and we are simply making due with what we can in this mortal life of ours. But have we really? Or was that just a story we told ourselves? 

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart (see Jeremiah 29:13).

Damascus Worship Featuring Olivia Parker - You're The Well

 

18 June 2026 - how to pray

Today's Readings
(Audio)

In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

It is sometimes tempting to imagine that our prayers ought to work like cause and effect, and that they should function like clockwork. Thus, if we don't receive what we ask immediately it might seem to us that we did something wrongly, either by using the wrong formula, or else by lack of sufficient quantity of words. In such ways we sometimes imagine prayer to as strategy for manipulating the deity to get what we want. But in fact it is more a strategy for aligning our hearts with the will of God so that we learn to want what he wants to give us. We may assume that once we sufficiently communicate our need or make our case God will eventually be convinced and acquiesce to our requests. After all, if he already knows what we need, why bother telling him? And yet, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him", but we are still commanded to pray.

Our Father who art in heaven

The first and most important step of prayer is to remember with whom we are speaking. We are not the uninvited guest in the court of a potentially hostile king trying to plead our cause like Esther. Rather, we are in the house of our Father who loves us and who desires to give good things to his children (see Matthew 7:11). Thus we have good reason to persevere even when we may initially have nothing to show for our petitions. This is a relationship of trust in which Father really does know best. If we don't get exactly what we want when we want it it can only be because he has something better saved for later.

hallowed be thy name

We are sometimes tempted to think of God as flawed or limited in the way of all other creatures. This leads us to second guessing and mistrusting his will for us, both in what he actively sends, and what he permits. This suspicion, characteristic of humanity since the fall in Eden, prevents us from really believing that all things work together for the good of those who love God. Rather, it seems that they only occasionally work together for people that love him, and probably never in our case. This is exactly the sort of suspicion we are meant to undermine by affirming his unassailable holiness. Thus it is of chief importance to us that his name be hallowed in our hearts. When that is the case we will have the wherewithal to also desire that the rest of the world recognize his holiness as well.

thy Kingdom come

In the Gospels we discovered that the life and ministry of Jesus was not about establishing a military kingdom in the way that David had done. But neither was it a mostly imaginary invisible reality. It took concrete form in the gathering of the twelve apostles. They became the twelve pillars of a new transnational Israel into which all nations are now meant to be gathered. Their successors, the bishops continue the work entrusted to them by Jesus. The parables about the kingdom told by Jesus are thus often about the growth and progress of the Church in the world through the ages. All of them remind us that the Kingdom can never be rightly understood as a merely human project. What is needed for Kingdom growth is not so much techniques or strategies but more of the Spirit. Since we ourselves receive anointing is priest, prophet, and king in our baptism we are not meant to merely watch passively as others build the kingdom. It is our royal duty as well.

thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Even now in heaven God's will is always accomplished perfectly and entirely. But earth is obviously another story. Yet we recognize a day is coming when all things will be subject to him, when there will be no more crying or tears, but only the unhindered giving and receiving of love. Still, we sometimes feel a need to be in control, to reserve the right to do something other than God's perfect will for us, even if it proves destructive in the end, or to settle for less than all he has planned for us. When the human will of Jesus might have preferred to avoid the cross even he prayed, "not my will, but yours, be done" (see Luke 22:42). So we too must practice submitting our self-will to the will of God. The end results will be worth it.

Only after completing these God focused petitions do we go on to pray for ourselves. Once we've remembered who he is and affirmed that he has the first place in our lives it becomes safe to ask for what we want, since we are now more likely to ask for what we ought to want, rather than what our ego would ask, which is "to spend it on your passions" (see James 4:3).

Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Chris Tomlin - Good Good Father

 

17 June 2026 - seen and unseen

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.

It isn't a bad thing to occasionally receive appreciation from others for the righteous deeds we do. But it is a problem when we become dependent on them for our motivation. If we only do things that can excite the admiration of others than much that needs to be done might remain not done. It will be as though those others are ultimately the ones in charge, giving us our marching orders, rather than God himself.

When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others.

We can't be limited in our almsgiving only to those things that other people notice. Even when there are people out there who care enough to reward good work with approval, they are not in a position to do so always and in every case. And that means that the human approval we gain by our good works will be a fickle friend. Even the good feelings we may produce in our own hearts by doing good and seeing ourselves as good people often prove unreliable. If we grow too addicted to human praise what happens when we can find any, either from others, or even ourselves? Will we nevertheless persist in doing what we ought? This is why Jesus does not encourage us to seek no reward whatever, but rather to count on God to reward us. We know that everything we do to bring us closer to him will eventually pay off. But we know better than to expect immediate one to one compensation from him. Rather, we grow in our capacity for him in ways that is often invisible even to ourselves, until he eventually comes and fills the space we have created with his own presence. It is he himself who desires to be our chief reward.

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

When we do things because it helps us to project a certain self-image to others this too is an unreliable motivation. It may work partially, for a time. But it quickly becomes an addiction that is increasingly difficult to satisfy. We have to become more and more extreme in our behavior to continue to get others to notice, let alone to impress them. Before long our religiosity has shifted from impressive to intimidating or even annoying. Aside from how we are likely to come across there is the more important truth that God would not have us use prayer, which is supposed to be the means by which we grow in relationship with him, for any lesser agenda. We don't want to cause scandal by appearing indifferent to the things of God. But it would be better for us if we could keep the depths of our devotion hidden and appear unexceptional to others, more willing to reveal our flaws and our shared humanity than supposed strength. Sometimes, it is true, we do need to set an example for others. Like Paul we may even need to say, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (see First Corinthians 11:1) and thus reveal some aspects of our spiritual life to others. But when this is required of us we must also be careful to insist that "we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us" (see Second Corinthians 4:7).

When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.

Another thing that people are unreliable at providing is pity. We may well learn to seek this from them by the way we present ourselves to them, hoping that they can help to assuage the suffering we feel. We may even do more than mere honest self-presentation and play up our misery in hopes that others notice. Receiving sympathy from others is not a bad thing, any more than receiving earned praise from them is a bad thing. But the fact of the matter is that people are unreliable, and ultimately incapable of giving us what we need. We may find in their compassion a partial and occasional answer to our grief. But God's heart is not fickle like human hearts. That is why we are called by the psalmist to "pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us" (see Psalm 62:8). His mercy and love are constant, always available to us, whenever we seek them. But if we are too busy seeking the pity of our neighbors we will tend to be too preoccupied to turn to God.

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to others to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

 

Songs In His Presence - Trust Him (Psalm 62)

 

16 June 2026 - a different kind of love

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Loving our enemies is a valuable test for us because in their case we know that we aren't being motivated by our own ego. With others we can easily convince ourselves that our love is altruistic while still being motivated mostly by what we ourselves receive. Yes, at times and in certain contexts it may seem to be primarily us giving and others receiving. But still, we may do such things for the way it makes others think about us, or the way it enables us to think about ourselves. Not so with enemies. With them our egos are chaffed as we go against our natural disposition to hostility and instead respond with kindness.

But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,

While we don't care to admit it we do tend to put people into categories. There are those we see as deserving of our love and those we see as having disqualified themselves. We might easily buy a coffee and a sandwich for someone with no place to live and no job. But we could hardly be bothered to even spare a polite word to someone with an opposite political point of view to our own. To give food to the hungry is obviously a good thing. But it is also something that more easily conduces to feeling good. To greet others who are not are political brothers with nothing but sincerity and kindness means by definition that we don't feeling smug and superior as a consequence. But it does make us more like Jesus who came to call everyone, not just those who were already onboard with his program, since, indeed, no one was. 

When we manage to love our enemies we become the peacemakers who will be called the sons of God. And therefore Jesus says, "you may be children of your heavenly Father". His love does not discrimination on the basis of who can reciprocate, since, after all, none of us can. It does not exclude even enemies. For if it did, we ourselves would never have been able to become his friends. He died for us while we were still hostile to him. But now he really does call us his friends (see John 15:15). And this is meant to be the model for our own love. It is not mere subjective abstraction. It is not just imaging that we have no enemies, or pretending a love which is merely in our minds. It is a love for enemies that is so real that it actually has a chance of turning them into our friends.

for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Let's stop making judgments about who is deserving and who is not. We don't have to enable or empower those given over to evil. But we do have to love them, and not merely in words. If they are in fact as given over to evil as we imagine, it may be because they have not known such love as Jesus enjoins on us. They may have experienced life where they felt they had to earn every affirmation they received. They may not know that they have value that is independent of anything they can do, simply because God made them and he loves them. But, in a small way, we can help to reveal this to them.

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The call to be perfect means many things. But today, for our purposes we can think about it as having no blind spots in our compassion. Thus, if we do have enemies, we have opportunities, opportunities to love even without obvious reward, to become peacemakers, and to reveal God's love to the world.

The Maranatha Singers - He Is Our Peace

 

15 June 2026 - understanding the assignment

Today's Readings
(Audio)

You have heard that it was said,
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Laws that were meant to prevent an escalation of violence in the public sphere were not to be used to justify revenge in private life. It was not the case that because it was the maximum permitted that one should take it as the minimum to be accepted. Maximums exist because of the necessity of maintaining society, which is only possible with consequences that deter bad actors. But they do not exist for us to indulge our own personal animosity toward others. If we are meant to be a people of peace and forgiveness we must understand the necessity of law and order but to try and to personally live a higher standard.

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one to him as well.

In the civil sphere the government must at least provide the possibility of resistance against those who are evil. But insofar as we can, without dismantling that protection, we are called to not personally impose or call for that resistance. We are instead called to a standard of nonviolence like that which was practiced by Jesus himself. This may include foregoing seeking legitimate legal protection or satisfaction. But we do not do this because we lack self-esteem or to make easy targets for evil people. We do so because our union with Christ makes it possible for us to absorb evil and transform it. We ourselves benefit by not encouraging a spirit of vengeance within our own hearts. And the other person benefits because they experience what it is like to be loved even when it would seem they have not earned it. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And while our enemies are still our enemies we must do our best to love them. After all, this is the only way the cycle of violence and retribution can ever truly be broken.

If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand him your cloak as well.

When we are required to respond out of obligation we tend to content ourselves with the bare minimum. There is no sense of compassion for the other, since they seem to be imposing their own will without regard for us. But we must not lose sight of the fact that even they are individuals created in the image and likeness of God. They are among the ones whose good we should desire for God's sake. And thus, our response should not be about what we can get away with ourselves so much as what the call of love would have us do for the other.

Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go with him for two miles.

It is possible that we can so change the context of how we are seen by oppressors that they no longer feel able to sustain their hostility. Slogans, protests, shouting, and violence may cause an oppressor to think twice and wonder if hostility is worth the trouble. But they are unlikely make a convert out of him. They are unlikely to help him see the shared humanity of the oppressed. But if we love him we can transcend these limits. We can help reveal the artificiality of the barriers that divide us from each other, and point to the fact that we are meant all meant to be united in the one family of God.

When we first encounter the beatitudes they typically seem impossible, and then unreasonable. But eventually, when we understand the assignment, they become our privilege. We are invited to live like Jesus, to love like him, and to watch that love transform the world.

Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

Hillsong Worship - To Be Like You

 

14 June 2026 - the chosen

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my special possession,
dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.

God chose the people of Israel in spite of the fact that they were far from the most impressive nation. It wasn't based on their merits that God desired them to be his special possession. It was on the basis of his choice, their election, that they were meant to be dearer to him than all other nations. There was a thread throughout the Old Testament of people who wanted to make a name for themselves, the instance of the Tower of Babel being among the most memorable. But God was not interested in helping with such projects. He rather chose the weak to shame the strong, even in the Old Testament before we really establish that as his primary MO. The instance of Gideon's army was just one such example. God desired to make clear that it was the strength of his arm and not the might of the soldiers that led to their salvation.

But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

We were chosen not only in spite of the fact that we weren't particularly impressive in a worldly sense, but even in spite of the fact that we weren't particularly good. It wasn't as though God decided to forego the strong people and select the nice ones. It was rather his love that caused him to save us before we took even so much as a thought for him. When we were wrapped up in self-love he was imagining how he could bring each of us to realize his love for us. He did so with such a shocking display of gratuitous compassion that even the most self-centered of us would have no choice but to take notice. 

Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.

God does not desire to leave us as he finds us, and it is for this reason that John Paul the Great said, "We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus". The love of God genuinely transforms us. It is more than snow covering dung or a garment concealing the filth underneath. We actually become the righteousness of God (see Second Corinthians 5:21) and grow in our ability to participate in the life of grace, which is  God's own divine life. This is ultimately what is meant by salvation. It is through this gift that we finally become the "kingdom of priests" and "holy nation" that we were always meant to be.

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them 
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.

What Jesus saw in the crowd was reflective of the condition he saw throughout the world. His heart for others was so big, but his reach was limited to the people who could encounter his physical presence on earth. Thus he wanted to expand his reach but using his disciples as his hands and feet. And he not only wanted to do so, but wanted us to want it. We were not meant to take for granted that there would be laborers, but to join Jesus in pleading with his Father that they be sent. We were to have the same heart of compassion for the world, often in spite of itself, that Jesus demonstrated. 

Jesus also want those who interceded for this purpose to be open to the fact that they might be among those God called, indeed, in one sense or another they would be. But it wasn't necessarily because there was a fit between natural predispositions and the work at hand. It wasn't as everyone thought about himself and saw how natural of a fit he would be to undertake the mission and decided to do so on that basis. Rather, a person would first see the need, then desire that it to be filled, and then be delighted when the call of Jesus made it possible for him to participate in some way. The compassion and the call came first. Then Jesus himself equipped and qualified the ones he called for their specific part of his mission. They were never meant to undertake it on their own abilities alone, any more than Peter could walk on water without the call of Jesus telling him to come.

The names of the twelve apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

If Jesus was able to start a Church that has endured through the ages into our own time using such a ragtag band as the pillars on which it was founded then we have no excuses for excusing ourselves from his call in our own lives, however great or small, public or hidden, that call may be. No matter how challenging it may seem, or how outnumbered we feel, the one thing necessary for success is to be called be Jesus. And we have been thus called.

There are many sheep that are still lost, still troubled and abandoned, still desperately in need of salvation. God wants to use us to help summon those who will be specially ordained or consecrated to the task. But he wants to use us directly as well. There is no limits to the compassion of his heart. And he desires that we place no limits on how that compassion can work in us and flow through us to the world.

Chris Tomlin - Jesus Messiah

 

13 June 2026 - no guarantees

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Do not take a false oath,
but make good to the Lord all that you vow.
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God's throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

The practice of swearing oaths had become so common that a person might have seemed insincere unless he resorted to one. People were expected to provide a level of certainty and assurance that they could not guarantee themselves. But many of the things that people wished to promise were too trivial to directly invoke God and ask for his assistance. So people tried a work around. They wanted to present their speech as more definitely connected to future results than mere creatures could. They thus attempted to insinuate divine assistance indirectly. Thus they could, as they thought, reap the benefits of an oath, and speak with certainty proper to God, without risking the consequences. They may have begun to think of themselves as people who could provide such certainty, even without reference to God or his providential care. No doubt the more they thought that way the more these empty oaths went unfilled. The expectations of others must gradually have eroded to the point where people no longer thought of such oaths as genuine, but more as a baseline of any kind of sincerity. Thus to make a promise without an oath must have seemed like one was not even trying. 

Do not swear by your head,
for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.'
Anything more is from the Evil One."

Jesus insisted that the way oaths were commonly used at the time was an abuse of the purpose for which they were intended, which was to safeguard the public good when it transcended individual interests. Taking an oath upon joining an army, or giving testimony, or taking office, were all such valid cases. But to merely strengthen an individual promise was generally not. He called his disciples to speak with the full knowledge that they were not in control of the future and could not alter its course by using more elaborate formulations of their promises. 

We may not be given to the abuse of oaths ourselves since they are no longer in vogue. But we do sometimes feel pressured to provide more assurance than we can realistically offer. And so make certain assumptions about the ways that the present will connect to the future, for better or for worse, and absolutize these assumptions. We speak as though we are prophets but without any genuine divine inspiration. We allude to vague but unassailable reasons for why the things we say must be true. We try to use our speech to add some certainty in an uncertain world, even if it is only certainty of doom and gloom.

Let's change our strategy of speech so that it reflects the fact the we do not know and can't guarantee the future. This may at first be disconcerting to the world around us which is used to a false sense of calm from people who pretend they can so guarantee it. Yet we may hope that people gradually come to realize that it isn't necessary for us to construct the future with empty words, since the future is in the hands of one much more trustworthy than us: God himself.

Matt Maher - Finished Work