31 July 2026 - homecourt disadvantage

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.

It first they seemed to be impressed by "the gracious words that were coming from his mouth" (see Luke 4:22). But it seemed that they wanted more than words. They had heard of the mighty deeds done at Capernaum and wanted to see him work similar wonders in Nazareth. But this initial demand issued not from genuine need, but rather from a sense of entitlement. They believed that as the place from where, as was thought, Jesus came, they deserved at least as much as anyone else. But Jesus was unwilling to give them spectacle that they didn't need just because they felt they deserved it. The fact that he was from Nazareth didn't imply anything special for them if they were unwilling to let him change their hearts. Jesus was intentionally provocative to those who presumed on God's mercy in this way.

I will treat this house like Shiloh,
and make this the city to which all the nations of the earth
shall refer when cursing another.Now the priests, the prophets, and all the people
heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the LORD.

The fact of the presence of the Ark of the Covenant in Shiloh was not enough to save a rebellious and unrepentant people from divine judgment through defeat at the hands of the Philistines. And neither the temple nor the Ark in themselves would be enough to turn the wrath of God away from the people in the time of Jeremiah unless the people listened and turned back, "each from his evil way". Thus the presence of God in the midst of his people is never meant to justify complacency. It is never meant to be presumed upon like magic that we can manipulate even in the midst of moral compromise. True mighty deeds of God come about when we realize the depth of our need for him. However impressive such deeds may appear to an observer, they are always even more transformative at an inner level.

Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?

When Jesus didn't act in such a way that privileged the people of Nazareth merely because of their proximity they began to turn that proximity into a verbal weapon against him. We sometimes do something similar when we don't receive what we want from the Lord. We may reflect and comment on the fact that we've only ever seen ordinary things as a result of our proximity to him. We've lived near his Eucharistic presence for how long with nothing to show for it? Needless to say if we have nothing to show for our proximity to the Eucharistic Lord the fault does not lie with him. We need to differentiate between the depth of our need for God, which is easy to forget, and what we deserve or believe we have earned, which is easy to assume. This becomes all the more necessary the longer we have lived as followers of Jesus. We never enter a mode of being where we can simply coast and let the momentum carry us, where faith is no longer necessary. We want to be like Jesus himself, consumed with zeal for the Father's house, and not with complacency. It is better for him to purify the temples of our hearts than to allow us to grow forgetful of the purpose of those temples, which is always the right praise of God.

But I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.

 

Vineyard - Help Us Our God

 

30 July 2026 - carry that waiting

Today's Readings
(Audio)

  

The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.

The part of this analogy that is taking place now is only the collection. The classification of good and bad will not happen until the end of the age. However, we tend to fixate on trying to figure out which is which right now. We often try to shift the motion of the gathering nets so as to avoid those whom we perceive as undesirable. We are often all too willing to take the task of throwing away of the bad upon ourselves. We attempt to create a pristine environment for ourselves within the net even before the boats reach the shore. No wonder that Jesus told so many parables about the impossibility these attempts and the futility of these efforts at preselecting only those qualified for the Kingdom. 

 

We learn this lesson from many of the parables of Jesus. We can't know with certain which are weeds and which are wheat until harvest. It is not possible to observe the action of the leaven when it is first mixed. The growth of the tiny seed goes unobserved at first and is not immediately identifiable with the large tree it may one day become. It is not until the last day that the sheep and the goats are divided. The wise and foolish maidens interact until just before the coming of the bridegroom. The point is not that we are meant to try to remain hidden. It is rather that much of what happens in the process of Kingdom growth is necessarily obscure to us. We are meant to be light and salt for the world. But none of us do this perfectly all the time. Even we ourselves can't have absolute certainty about whether we will be the good that is put into buckets or the bad that is thrown away. The reason we can't is that it is not yet the end and we can still change for better or for worse. One thing that is both certain and obvious is that none of us is perfect while this mortal life lasts. Thus we want to be and remain in the hands of the potter who will continue to help to reform and refashion us until we become all that he, the divine artists, knows we can be.

Whenever the object of clay which he was making
turned out badly in his hand, 
he tried again,
making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased.

In virtue of repeated exposure to these parables we have become, in a sense, scribes who have "been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven". We can now see the direction that all that came before was tending, the Old Covenant that Jesus himself fulfilled. So we bring forth the old to point ahead to Jesus. But we must also bring forth that which was unique to the message of Jesus, the new, the good news of what God did for us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and what he desires for us for all eternity. The new and the old are thus too halves that are only fully intelligible together. When we keep our Kingdom instruction in mind we are less likely to succumb to temptations to choose false alternatives, such as this one against which the psalmist warns:

Put not your trust in princes,
in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.
When his spirit departs he returns to his earth;
on that day his plans perish.

 

 Hillsong Worship - The Potter's Hand

29 July 2026 - now and then, here and there

 

Today's Reading

(Audio)

 

Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.

Martha seemed to mean that she knew Jesus had no limitations to expressing his power in a way the was preventative, that avoided evil in the first place. Neither did she assume that when he did not exercise this power in response to her specific circumstance that it necessarily meant his power was necessarily any less. But she she did seem to question the degree to which he cared for her and her family specifically. That uncertainty did not lead her to give up on Jesus entirely. She still recognized that God would give him whatever he asked. It was just that it had now become obvious that he wasn't always going to ask for what mattered to her. 

Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise.”
Martha said to him,
“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.

Given the fact that Jesus could have saved Lazarus but did not do so Martha could only infer that it was not to be during her mortal life. To be sure on the last day, so distant from Martha as to be little more than dream, he would rise. But would it not have been the case that if Jesus cared for her, Mary, and Lazarus in their lives here and now, and not only in the future, that he would have already done what she knew he could have done to save him? If all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose why do some of those things seem to be obviously and entirely negative? It is not enough to say that the last day will more than make up for it, though clearly, it will. The point is that if the statement "All things" really means "All" it must include even those which seem to us difficult to square with divine providence. "All things" must even include the evils that we know that God, in the mystery of his wisdom, does sometimes permit. Yet sometimes we so surrender to that mystery as to assume that God is really indifferent to things that occur in this mortal life, to our daily joys and sorrows, caring instead only that things will be sufficiently good in the end.

Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”

Jesus revealed to Martha what she had not dared to hope. She might have agreed that he would be the resurrection and the life on the last day, that at his voice those who slept in the tombs would awake to life, but she would not have been able to believe or imagine that he was the resurrection and the life now. Her grief had already made her abandon hope that she could experience life from Jesus in the way she desired until the last day. He apparently hadn't helped in the first place. So why would she imagine he might do so now? Indeed, from her perspective, it would have been almost unfathomable to imagine that he might he stayed away for a time just to perform this miracle. After all, wouldn't it have been better to save Lazarus in the first place and spare them the grief? If the purpose was only to restore him to a mortal life in which he must eventually die again one day would not sooner be better? Yet there was something greater that came about because of the choice of Jesus to do this. It was precisely the revelation that he was the source of life now, and not only later, and that by knowing him we could share in that life. It didn't always take the form of miracles, and when it did, they weren't always the ones for which we asked, but it remained available and possible nevertheless. It remains so now. We don't in fact have to wait for the last day to experience the gift of supernatural life from Jesus. And it is precisely this life within us that helps to anchor us as we navigate the trials and challenges of this life. Rather than giving up when God doesn't give us exactly what we want exactly when we want it let us so with Martha, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world".

 

 Pat Barrett - The Way (New Horizon)

 

28 July 2028 - pro-seed with caution

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

"Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."

This parable was not primarily about predestination. It is true that some of the plants we now see growing will prove to be from the good seed sown by the Son of Man. And yes, it is true as well that some plants will prove to be weeds fit only for burning. But the actual point Jesus made was that it is basically impossible to identify which is which before the harvest at the end of the age. Therefore this parable has more to do with dealing with this unavoidable ambiguity in the world in even in the Church herself before that time. 

 

The fact is that attempting perfection in the sense of constructing an earthly Church consisting only of those who are perfectly pure is impossible. We may mean well, but even we still sometimes exhaust the soil to a greater degree than we bear fruit. We may simply be branches in need of pruning. But it is yet possible that even we ourselves may not be among those who will shine like the sun of the Kingdom of the Father. Since no one can have absolute certainty about himself while he yet lives how much less so regarding the destiny of others? No one can be excluded as worthless or without hope until the last day reveals it. We tend to be eager to go weed hunting in the world as a way to distract us from ourselves, people with boards in our eyes on the hunt for those with specs in theirs. It is a deeply flawed approach that not only won't benefit the Church or the world but will ultimately injure us and keep us from the growth that we still need.

The weeds are the children of the Evil One,
and the enemy who sows them is the Devil.

It is true that there is evil in the world that goes above and beyond mistakes and innocent errors. There is in fact a force hostile to God at work, trying to sabotage his works. We do well to remember this rather than approach life with a naive optimism, only to be disappointed when not everything is sunshine and roses. But while remembering it, we keep in mind that the evil we face cannot be identified with any specific individuals, even those who seem openly and directly hostile to us and to the plan and purpose of God. Our warfare is not finally against them, or any who are flesh and blood, but rather against the devil who has co-opted their freedom and is using them for his purposes. Our warfare requires love for our earthly enemies in order to defeat the spiritual powers who oppose us.

"To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head" (see Romans 12:20).

It is impossible to ignore the constant thread of salvation history in which God called his people back from their sins to himself. No one was ever so fixed in his position that an appeal might not win him back to the side of goodness, truth, and beauty. We see such a response from Jeremiah on behalf of the people, many of whom seemed to be weeds, but with whom he yet identified himself.

We recognize, O LORD, our wickedness,
the guilt of our fathers;
that we have sinned against you.
For your name's sake spurn us not,
disgrace not the throne of your glory;
remember your covenant with us, and break it not.

Jesus, too, only makes sense in when recognize that he came to offer us a choice, one which he ensures we have sufficient freedom to make. He did not come merely to categorize the righteous and the wicked. Rather, he came to invite all men to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, just as his Father desired. How different the mission and ministry of Jesus would have looked if it was predicated on preaching to people only in order to seal an eternal destiny they could not control. He never told anyone they were so good, so well situated, that there was not work that remained for them to do. He never told anyone that they were too broken or compromised to change. Rather, he always made sure that speculation about matters known with certainty only to God never got in the way of the work that remained to be done. It is only in this context that the plea in today's psalm makes sense:

 

Let the prisoners' sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.

Dan Feiten - Seed, Scattered and Sown

27 July 2026 - branching out

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.

The Church started so small that it seemed it could never make a significant difference in the world. Jesus may have possessed divine power and authority along with heavenly wisdom but he and his disciples did not seem positioned to effect much beyond the backwater of Israel let alone transform the world. Yet the Church did become a bush so large that the birds of the sky could come to dwell in its branches, just as God intended for Israel. It was through God's covenant promise to Abraham that all nations of the earth were to be blessed, and the temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all peoples. Yet the expansion of these blessings beyond the boundaries of Israel were always hesitant, halting, and incomplete during the times before the coming of Jesus. But one might wonder. If Solomon was as close as Israel came to fulfilling its destiny to be a light to the nations, drawing people from the ends of the earth to hear his wisdom, wouldn't whatever finally did fulfill that destiny be, by necessity, large and obvious? Yet it was precisely in the mustard seed of faith Jesus entrusted to the followers, and in particular to his Apostles that this promise was eventually realized. They were successful because they took Jesus at his word. They were under-resourced, outnumbered, outmatched, but they didn't let this stop them or even slow them down once the Holy Spirit sent them forth on the day of Pentecost. Even then, supernaturally equipped, it might not have seemed like what they had was all that much when faced with all the resistance of the world, let alone enough to address all the needs its brokenness. But by being faithful to the small seed entrusted to each of them they changed the world. The period of history that their efforts ushered in would be entirely unintelligible if not for these mustard seeds to explain it. 

 

The disciples didn't let appearances stop them. It was a little like the scene in Star Wars were Yoda explained that the appearance of size was not the deepest truth, and then preceded to lift the crashed X-Wing from the swamp unto dry land by his power. Our faith, it is said, can move mountains, which are larger still than X-Wings. However it can only do this if we don't take for granted what we have been given, but rather choose to place our faith in the wisdom with which Jesus has apportioned to us the gifts and opportunities that constitute our lives. The mustard seed is inherently something that doesn't seem that valuable apart from the fact that Jesus said it is valuable, and the promise he attached to when it is faithfully sown.

He spoke to them another parable.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”

The yeast is a small fraction of the recipe yet has a disproportionate effect on the resulting loaf. Just so, even when the Church is a minority in the world it nevertheless has an effect beyond what scale would suggest is possible. Especially now, in an age where the faithful are a remnant, rather than a dominant cultural, force this is reassuring. But we should remember that the initial presence of the yeast in the dough is hidden. It is meant to be mixed in with the other ingredients. It is only over the course of time that there is any evidence of the batch rising and obtaining to a higher destiny of deliciousness. Our own role in helping to address the challenges of our times is similarly often invisible at first. But it does require that we not keep ourselves entirely isolated from the world around us. We can't simply remained sealed in yeast packets. We must be unleashed if we are too have the intended effect, even if, at first, we seem to be lost in a much larger mixture.

 

 

Newsboys - Secret Kingdom

 

26 July 2026 - wise decisions

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 

What is the one thing for which we would give everything? Is there anything so valuable to us that it would be worth sacrificing all that we have and all that we are in order to obtain it? For the person that found the treasure in the field this wasn't a question of 'should'. He didn't sell all that he had because he knew he was supposed to want the treasure and therefore forced himself to take the steps to obtain it. Rather, once he had seen the treasure he could do nothing else. He was so captivated by it, and perceived its value so clearly, that to part with all else that he owned was not a difficult choice. This may not be our own experience of Christianity. Indeed we probably can't always possess such clear intrinsic motivation. But the parable is meant to make us consider the worth of the things that we do value, things that we are loathe to let go, for the sake of obtaining the treasure present in Christ. The parable is meant to help us to recognize the relative lack of value that even the best things possess when compared to Jesus himself.

St Paul understood the value of the treasure. He wrote, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (see Philippians 3:8). We are wise when we trade that which we cannot keep in order to obtain that which we can never be taken from us. By contrast we are fools when we choose the things that moths eat and rust destroys instead of a Kingdom that will last forever. Treasure in heaven is the only kind truly worthy of the name. But, at a certain point, we actually have to be convinced of its value. It is true that we know that even if we gain the world we can only keep it for a limited time. But even so, we will not be able to lay down our lives for Christ if we don't recognize the value of the result, that "whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (see Matthew 16:25). The motivation that obtains the treasure is not something we fundamentally possess in advance. Rather it is a draw that comes to us inexorably from the beauty of the treasure itself. It is grace, not nature, that enables us to make a response that transcends the merely natural, and to set aside earthly treasures for treasure in heaven.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls. 
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. 

Our translation seems to indicate that this merchant was looking to collect a variety of fine pearls. What, then, must he have seen to act in such a well as to rule out the possibility of attaining in others? He had seen, no doubt, many fine pearls by then. What must he have seen in the pearl of great price to decide it was the only one he would ever need from that point forward? We too have seen many good things. We live in this world looking for goods like possessions, choices, and relationships. But we see too that all of these are tarnished to one degree or another with imperfections. But in Jesus we meant to find one so good that we are willing to rule out other options in order to have him, or rather, to have him take hold of us. At this point, if we're still thinking, 'Yes, but I like my other possessions', or, 'I can't rule out the possibility that there are pearls that may yet be worth acquiring', it means we need more grace in order to see more clearly the value of what is on offer in the person of Jesus himself. This is the kind of recognition which is truly transformative, the purity of heart that leads to the vision of God. This is what John meant when he wrote, "we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (see First John 3:2).

When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets. 

There are many fish currently in the net. Some will prove good and some will prove rotten. But before the end of the age the final determination of which is which has not yet been made. That means we still have time. It implies that obtaining the treasure is not really a once and for all choice on our part, not what we call colloquially 'one and done'. If we have not yet recognized the full value of the treasure in a transformative way there is still time to do so. But if we don't take seriously what we have discovered there is the possibility of losing even what we have. The treasure in the field was obviously unearned. And even though the merchant had been looking for pearls he had no right to hope to find one so vastly superior to the others. It too was ultimately a gift of grace. So too for us. The only way to gain is on the basis of the gift we have been given. The only way to ultimately lose is to refuse it. As Jesus said, "For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away" (see Matthew 13:12). We know where the treasure is found, and the pearl of great price is in our midst. There is no need for us or for anyone to experience "wailing and grinding of teeth". Let us turn the eyes of our hearts toward the treasure that God never ceases to offer us.

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints (see Ephesians 1:18).

Sonicflood - Open The Eyes Of My Heart

25 July 2026 - forecasted reign

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

"Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom."

When we look back upon this ambition of the sons of Zebedee we are rightly scandalized. We know where Jesus was heading. We perceive how insensitive it was to request worldly position, power, or privilege from one who was on the way to a cross. To make us realize this Matthew placed this event immediately after Jesus made one a prediction of his passion, one of several throughout the Gospel. It almost seemed like the brothers were pursuing an emergency backup plan. Humanly speaking, if Jesus wasn't going to be around to run the Kingdom himself, perhaps they could be the ones to ensure it continued in his absence. But was this not insensitive to the imminent destiny of one who was their friend and teacher? How could they only think about what would be left for them if Jesus was no longer present?

We ourselves are not so different from these two. However much we disapprove of what they did, it is easy to do so from such a great distance with the context supplied by the Gospel. Yet it is harder to recognize the times in our own lives when we try to co-opt Christianity for our own purposes, and the times when we try to salvage what we can when it does not meet the expectations we had when we began.

"You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?"

When we pray we tend to ask wrongly, to spend it on our passions (see James 4:3). We often forget that Christianity is fundamentally about coming to share the self-sacrificial love of Jesus himself so that we can live forever in the mutual self-gift of the Trinity. Instead, we use Christianity as a way to advance our own goals and achieve our own purposes, which are sometimes quite noble and others less so. Sometimes we use it as a strategy for self-validation, as a way of proving our value to ourselves. We want to feel that we are in the right place and doing the right thing. Fine and good. But we must not twist Christianity to give tacit approval to what we have already decided. We must let it shape our values. We are meant to share in the rightness of Jesus, in his own righteousness. But this means we can no longer decide or define for ourselves what is meant by righteousness.

They said to him, "We can."
He replied,
"My chalice you will indeed drink,

It was helpful that they were motivated. From our perspective it is reassuring to see that Jesus can use even imperfect motivation to keep us on the path pursuing his Kingdom. If he could not, we would be in bad shape, because we rarely if ever experience motivation that is entirely free from self-interest and even self-deception. We might not always recognize it in ourselves. But the degree to which it bothers us when we see it in others is illustrative.

When the ten heard this,
they became indignant at the two brothers.

They all seemed to be asking how dare James and John express such naked ambition. And yet their own response demonstrated that they too were caught up in ambition, competition, and selfish desire. They might have expressed sympathy, recognizing the wounded place from where this request for James and John had come. They could have played a supporting role as Jesus helped them to see things more clearly and correctly. But instead they allowed it to divide them, just as the enemy intended. Yet Jesus would not let the enemy have his way by causing any permanent division among his band. To counteract it he helped them to see what was meant by truly reigning in his Kingdom.

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

He tied it all back to what he came to do, the very thing that they wanted to ignore and avoid. In doing so he helped to prepare them for the truly glorious destiny which he did in fact have planned for them.

Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (see Matthew 19:28).

There was no way to true glory that didn't lead through the cross. Jesus came, not to go to the cross so we could reign on earth, but to lead us to the cross ourselves so that we might reign with him in heaven.

 

 Newsboys - He Reigns

24 July 2026 - not fruit barren

 

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom
without understanding it,
and the Evil One comes and steals away
what was sown in his heart.

There are several reasons why one might not understand. The first is that one is unable to do so, in which event we must assume that God will intervene for the sake of his little ones and help them receive the seed. The second is that one is not sufficiently interested. But one would naturally be interested in the most important truth in the world. To not be so implies that one has succumbed to the distractions and addictions that plague the attention economy. This is the mental posture of one invited to a wedding feast who yet prefers his daily obligations of work to an incomparable celebration. The third is that sometimes facts adjacent to the message make us not give it due consideration. If we hear it from a person we hold in suspicion we might not consider it on its own merits. If we hear it along with other things that make us emotionally reactive we might reject it on this basis of how we feel rather than what is true. Fourth, we sometimes realize that we might understand something if we made the effort, but we do not deem it valuable enough to do so. We could, perhaps, figure out how to unlock the treasure. In fact, we seem to have been given instructions for precisely that. But, then again, haven't we been doing well enough without such treasure? Aren't we fine and OK as we are? Well, we may think that staring at the locked chest. But there are many other times when we know that we are not OK and that we do in fact need and desire more. If receiving more is not automatic, but requires a full investment of self, let us realize it and go all in in hope of abundant fruit. What we ought not do is be content with what we know to be excuses.

The seed sown on rocky ground
is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.
But he has no root and lasts only for a time.
When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word,
he immediately falls away.

Enthusiasm is a good place to start. But as with any relationship, it can't be the only motivating force. Husbands and wives who only act with love when they feel warm feelings probably won't stay together long. When their relationship encounters tribulation they are at risk of falling away from each other. So too with the seed of new life given to us by Jesus. We need a sufficiently deep root to persist even when our feelings make us want to give up. How can we have such a root? Intentional learning, leading to understanding, as described above, is certainly a part of it. Understanding leads us to acknowledge that trials are part of our life as disciples. When we have this understanding we can make a firm resolve in advance to meet them, knowing too that Jesus himself will give us the grace we need. We can know that we have this grace even when we don't feel like it. And this can eventually lead to a deeper confidence than the fickle nature of our superficial feelings can supply. We learn to rely on God rather than ourselves. Another aspect of rootedness can come from community, when we are surrounded by like minded people. Such people will soon be tested, or are be tested now, or have just made it through a time of testing. Pursuing the same path with them will help us to realize that things have not gone wrong in our individual case, but that they are normal. We will thus be more likely to persist, with the encouragement of those around us.

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world (see First Peter 5:8-9, emphasis mine).

The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word
and it bears no fruit.

We believe it may be worldly concerns that are the greatest risk to people who have been walking with Jesus for a while. We are disposed to recognize the dangers of insufficient understanding and lack of root. But we treat the anxieties of life as relatively harmless, in spite of the way they often monopolize our attention and neutralize our effectiveness as disciples. How many things might we have done for our Lord and his Kingdom had we merely possessed the mental bandwidth to make a proper response to some invitation from the Lord or some prompting from his Spirit? We can't wait for the enemy to finally stop supplying fodder about which we might be anxious, as this will never happen. Nor are we meant to simply become tougher and face anxiety head on by our own strength. Instead, let us listen to Saint Paul.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (see Philippians 4:6-7).

This verse from Philippians coincides with the command of Jesus himself:

Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? (see Matthew 6:25).

The point of Jesus was not that we should be reckless. Rather it was that we should ultimately allow the fact that God is in control to be more important to us than our anxieties. With Peter we must take up the practice of "casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you" (see First Peter 5:7). It isn't that there is nothing about which we might be anxious in the world. It is rather that we know him who holds the world in his hands.

But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.

We can profitably consider what moments who led to the greatest yield of fruit in our lives, what study, sermons, retreats, small groups, revelations, or other encounters have done the most to enhance our growth? Are we still seeking to be the kind of soil we were then? Or are we content to rest on our laurels? We should not presume that we can simply live comfortably without fruit. The opposite of fruit is barrenness. And there is ultimately nothing worse than that.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away (see Psalm 1:4).

 

The Dameans - Speak, Lord

 

23 July 2026 - parables in a china shop

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”

Why not just be straightforward about the message? If he wanted them to get it, why speak about it obliquely? If he didn't, why teach the crowds at all? Even though the disciples often heard the parables explained in private they still made it clear that they found the teaching style of Jesus to be difficult. When they finally heard something that sounded simple and direct they got excited, saying "Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!" (see John 16:29). It seemed easier to respond when Jesus was more direct. The disciples in that particular scene from the Gospel of John seemed to believe that they had attained the next level of faith. But it didn't actually help them remain faithful when they were tested during the hour of Jesus. 

The parables, by contrast, required an investment of effort that was less likely to lead to overconfidence or arrogance. Even with the full explanation one was never quite sure he understood how all the pieces fit together. Even in the parables that seemed simple one was never certain he had exhausted all of its possible applications or ramifications. What means Jesus used to teach in a particular instance, understanding was not an automatic result in his listeners. Whether he spoke in parables or directly his words required the Spirit to create true understanding in his listeners. The Spirit was the one who enabled eyes to truly see and ears to truly hear. But the advantage of the parables was that it kept the limits of the understanding of the audience at the forefront so they would know their need to look to a deeper level for enlightenment. 

In a way, the parables were so close to the crowds, drawn from the examples of daily life. But this was similar to Jesus himself, who, though close to them, contained hidden depths. If one explained those depths too directly the risk was that people would think they got it before they really opened themselves to understand. Jesus held back the fact that he was the messiah for similar reasons. It wasn't always helpful to just state the fact without the Spirit to aid in understanding.

Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

When one was willing to open himself to understanding (that is, standing under, rather than above) the parables, he had a starting place from which to grow. It required and therefore demonstrated docility before Jesus the teacher. The parables required a posture of humility that was off-putting to the experts but often amicable to the unlearned. Can't those of us who are somewhat educated imagine that difficulty accepting a popular movement of this kind? How could such rabble think they understood better than ourselves with our college degrees? Nowhere else in society would we be happy to see such a reversal. But Paul made it explicit, writing, "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise" (see First Corinthians 1:27).

By contrast, those who try to pierce the parables with their own intellectual prowess would find themselves repulsed by their own effort. The more they tried to master them the more they would be rebuffed. They would find them overly simplistic, stating in a convoluted way that which could have been said directly with more clarity. They seemed to put a mask of mystery over what need not be complex. More to it, the evident solutions didn't even line up nicely with the imagery. They just never seemed to work in a way that was entirely satisfactory to the intellect. They were, in a way, like the koans of Buddhism. They called for transcendence more than a correct answer. 

It's no wonder that many people encounter the teachings of Jesus with some initial curiosity but end up looking elsewhere, just as many people did in the time of Jeremiah. The risk of forsaking the source of living waters is ever present. The Spirit himself is the living water whom we must not forsake. So let us instead run to him, and drink deeply of the only source that can truly satisfy our thirst.

Two evils have my people done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water.

Vineyard Music - The River Is Here

 

22 July 2026 - I have seen the Lord

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Mary Magdalene was acting out the response of the bride from Song of Songs, seeking him whom her heart loved. She continued to seek Jesus even when hope was gone, even if just to find his body so she could treat it with due honor. This refusal to let go could be excessive in situations of merely earthly attachment. But when the source of the attachment was divine love it was inevitable that it would be eventually vindicated, though, of course, she could not realize it. Even in her own eyes what Mary was seeking seemed hopeless. But at a higher level, one based on faith, she continued the pursuit of her beloved. She enlisted the aid of the disciples, making sure they were aware of the most recent development. 

And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"
She said to them, "They have taken my Lord,
and I don't know where they laid him."

She even unintentionally involved angels in her search. She was so preoccupied with Jesus that she didn't seem to notice their glorious appearance, but treated them as any other ordinary people she might have encountered. Most people would have been moved to awe by the presence of angels in their midst. But Mary didn't have any additional bandwidth for that. It was all consumed by her focus on Jesus himself. It was an all-encompassing obsession that refused to be satisfied until Jesus was found. On one level, she knew that she could only hope to find his lifeless body. But the motivation she showed demonstrated that she held unto a subconscious hope for more.

She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
"Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him."

Amazingly, even with all of her focus and fixation on seeking out Jesus she was not able to recognize him when he did cross her path. Of course this was, in some way, intentional on the part of Jesus. Like the bridegroom from Songs he was acting playfully aloof and evasive. But like the bridegroom the point of this was to make their reunion all the sweeter.

Jesus said to her, "Mary!"
She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
"Rabbouni," which means Teacher.

Thus we see that the resurrection is not something we discover primarily by analyzing lifeless historical artifacts, so much as it is a revelation given to us by God. The tomb was indeed empty. And that was evidence of something, Mary knew not what. But it was the presence of her beloved alone that proved what had taken place. It was not something her grief, her obsession, or her single-minded seeking, were able to attain by themselves. But it was precisely the negative space created in her by this refusal to surrender that Jesus himself desired to fill with his own loving presence.

Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

Jesus was physically risen from the dead and thus could be held. But even in spite of her great love she was not meant to cling to him in this way. Even though she had only just feared she had lost him forever, the solution was not now to hold on and never let go. The context of the relationship had to change from an earthly friendship to a heavenly one, which, though different, was no less real. This freed Jesus to ascend and be present to the whole world, even unto the end of the age. And it freed Mary Magdalene to become the first evangelist, the first person to announce the Gospel message: "I have seen the Lord".

We are meant to share this motivation of Mary Magdalene since we too have come to share the same conviction that she possessed, the one described by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians.

The love of Christ impels us,
once we have come to the conviction that one died for all;
therefore, all have died.
He indeed died for all,
so that those who live might no longer live for themselves
but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Very Early Sunday Morning

 

21 July 2026 - bigger on the inside

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.

From outside could have come anyone, with any worldly status, even a king or a high priest, and Jesus might have responded similarly, saying that it was within, within the courts of his presence that were found the members of a truly royal priesthood. No goods that were found in the world outside could be compared with those that were found in Jesus himself. This was the reason that he said that "among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist" but that "Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (see Matthew 11:11).

Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside,
asking to speak with you.”

We might hear this and assume that Jesus was minimizing the importance of his mother. But this was not quite right. He was minimizing the importance of her natural blood relationship to him within his Kingdom, but not her relationship entirely, nor even her motherhood. Mary, more than anyone else in history was one who consented to and cooperated with the will of the heavenly Father of Jesus, and precisely for this reason became his mother in a spiritual as well as a physiological sense. With her things happened in a way that reversed the normal order of the world where the natural came first and the spiritual had to build on such foundations as it supplied, however robust or inadequate. But precisely in order to begin the true process of reconnecting the world of nature with the spiritual order of heaven a reversal and a change was needed. Thus it was with the fiat of Mary to the archangel Gabriel that the story of our salvation reached its final phase. Nature had proven itself unable to claw or crawl its way back to God on its own. So God empowered a lowly virgin with grace in order that the world could be renewed from the inside out. He truly cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. It was never primarily about what Mary brought to the table, but rather about what God had already done for her, and the way she responded and cooperated to that fullness of grace that had been bestowed.

“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

It is not only Mary who is invited into the spiritual family of Jesus but all of us. Despite how the invitation of Jesus may sound ("whoever does"), it does not come about in the first place on the basis of our effort. Rather, as with Mary, it is a response to the grace we have first received, in our case through faith in baptism. Thus it is as a gift that we become sons and daughters through the Spirit of adoption (see Romans 8:15). But like Mary we must not only receive the grace but make our lives a response to the grace in order for it to be real in our lives. Without that it is but wasted potential.

 

Jars Of Clay - They'll Know We Are Christians

 

20 July 2026 - by de-sign

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

Just show us one more thing and we'll finally being convinced. We just need one more sign and we'll finally make a serious response. Is this only the scribes and the Pharisees? Or is this us as well? 

An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.

Like the people of Nineveh, we have heard the voice of a prophet. But the people of Nineveh repented because of the preaching of Jonah, who did not even want them to repent or be spared. But we who have heard the voice of Jesus, who is one greater than Jonah, and who came to us freely and from his compassion, are still waiting for more. We continue to dally with sin and the ways of the world, pretending we don't have sufficient grounds to do something more drastic and make a more comprehensive response. That, we tell ourselves, would require some special sign from God, or a particular indication that he desired it. But the sign that we need is one we have received. Jesus came and preached repentence. So let's get after it.

Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, 
so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth
three days and three nights.

We may be surprised that the people of Nineveh took Jonah as seriously as they did. After all, he didn't want to be there and his message wasn't particularly verbose or articulate. He didn't go to great lengths to specify God's desired response. All he said was in fact, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (see Jonah 3:4). And yet, we read immediately that "the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them" (see Jonah 3:5). But if they knew the story of how Jonah came to be among them it might make more sense. If they saw the real danger in trying to stand athwart the purpose of God even as a chosen prophet, that in itself might have in itself been compelling. If they realized that Jonah had died in the belly of the fish and had been resurrected on their shore to deliver his message, well, how could they not give their utmost to respond?

The supernatural beginning to the spread of Jonah's word to them does potentially explain the response of the people of Nineveh. But we are a people who have received a Gospel that had an even more profound beginning. The word of Jesus was vindicated by his own resurrection from the dead. This sign ought to be all sufficient to motivate any change to which we are called by the Gospel, and to sustain any level of effort for our response to Jesus. It ought to be easier for us, since Jonah apparently preached a message of destruction, whereas Jesus explicitly taught that he came to save rather than condemn. But because Jesus came with a message of love we tend to take him for granted and minimize the real demands that love places upon us. It all feels less serious and more negotiable than fire and brimstone. But it ought to provoke from us a greater response than fear could motivate, not a lesser one.

At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon;

We will often go a long way and put in a lot of effort to pursue things that interest us, that appeal to our curiosity, or titillate our intellect. But it is precisely the casual and inconsequential nature of such things that makes them feel like safe pursuits. We don't find the motivation to pursue things that are every bit as intellectually interesting, and yet more serious and with more real life ramifications, as easily as we do mere curiosities. There is nothing as objectively interesting as the word of God. How could there be? Yet our study of God's word often feels more like an obligation than a passion. And why? Is it perhaps because we haven't realized how great the subject of the word of God, Jesus himself, truly is? Compared to him, the wisdom of Solomon was at best a prelude, and at worst a distraction.

there is something greater than Solomon here.

Though we are called to make a response to Jesus with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, it is nevertheless not complicated. What is asked of us is still only that which the prophet Micah handily summarized:

You have been told, O man, what is good,
and what the LORD requires of you:
Only to do the right and to love goodness,
and to walk humbly with your God.

 

Newsboys - Belly Of The Whale

 

19 July 2026 - together until harvest

Today's Readings
(Audio)

  

The kingdom of heaven may be likened
to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 

God made all things and saw that they were good. He sowed good seed in his field. Hence the question: Whence evil? The answer: not from God, but from his enemy. Yet this poses other questions, just as the serpent's very existence in Eden posed questions for Adam and Eve. Was this being a genuine rival to the sower of the seed? Could he actually bring the sower's plans to ruin? The very fact of his presence, and of the existence of evil generally, seemed to suggest a limit to God's power. Why would the serpent be present if God could have prevented it? Why would there be evil in the world if God could have made one without it? If we are honest we will probably admit that we sometimes find it hard to believe in the absolute power and goodness of our God while we are yet surrounding by and ourselves experiencing suffering.

While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. 

The enemy made life and growth more difficult for the wheat. But he was unable to uproot it or to destroy it entirely. His own works were able to survive because they were so intertwined with the good that the sower was doing that one could not be easily extricated from the other. Evil is always parasitic on the good. It cannot not thrive on its own as though it were some contrary competitive force. Therefore a 'rip and replace' strategy was untenable. One could not remove evil without doing damage to the integrity of those crops that were good and desirable. In the first place, it wasn't always immediately clear which was which. This reflects the fact that our own lives are ultimately undetermined before the harvest time of judgment. It takes time and for the distinctions between the weeds and the wheat to become clear. And while God himself could determine the difference at any time it was not possible for the slaves of his household to do so. In trying to eliminate all weeds they would probably uproot some wheat as well. Even if the wheat wasn't uprooted entirely, tearing asunder its entanglement with the weeds would invariably cause damage. For those of us who hope to be proved wheat at harvest time we are meant to grow by means of the freedom we have been given. Other people can't merely turn us to saints by force. But God is different. His miraculous power is such that, when harvest time comes, he can burn away from us all that is not an intended part of his harvest while leaving the core of who we are intact.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (see First Corinthians 3:15).

But could not the master have ensured that the enemy never entered the field in the first place? When the slaves are astounded at the appearance of the weeds the master tells them, "An enemy has done this" without sounding surprised or having to first go and investigate. It must be that he allowed this to happen as a part of a larger plan that was obscure to the slaves. Rather than defeating the enemy immediately he would deliver a greater defeat by using what the enemy intended for evil to bring about something good. Indeed, we know that God only permits evil to bring about a greater good. Do we always see this good from the narrow horizon of plants still growing in the field? No. In fact, to us all the presence of evil seems to accomplish is draining the life from the wheat, causing it to become apparently weaker and less resilient than would otherwise be the case. But we know that the harvest is coming. And we trust that when it comes the reason why God permitted the presence of the weeds will become clear. The fruit that results will somehow be better and greater than it would have otherwise been. Thus, the feast at which the fruit is enjoyed, will more than make up for whatever we must endure to reach that point.

 

 

Elevation Worship Featuring Chris Brown - Trust In God

 

18 July 2026 - he will not contend

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

He will not contend or cry out,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory.

We may sometimes wonder if it would not have been better for Jesus to do something more demonstrably and indisputably divine, proving himself beyond all shadow of doubt to his contemporaries, and leaving an undeniable mark on history itself. But we can see that the reason he did not do so was precisely because if he did contend or cry out in that way many a "bruised reed" would be broken and the nascent faith of many a "smoldering wick" would be quenched. 

 

If Jesus had chosen to appear as powerful, loud, and impossible to ignore, he would have appealed to precisely the wrong people, those who were least likely to actually internalize his teaching. By contrast those little ones who might have accepted him would have had their little wicks extinguished. So too would people like the Pharisees lose what tenuous grasp on truth that they possessed. They would have either been hardened against Jesus. Or, perhaps worse, they would have supported him because he appealed, not to the better angels of their nature, but to their pride and base instincts. Extracting oneself from serving a Jesus constructed after one's own image and likeness could possible prove harder than being converted from sincerely opposing his message. 

 

Rather than use excessive strength to try to bring about the Kingdom by force, Jesus demonstrated the fact the he was meek and lowly of heart. The King of kings did not come at his opponents with angel armies, but withdrew. The all powerful God allowed himself to become weak, even though it made it appear that his enemies were winning, because by doing so he might make those enemies into his friends. Is this how we would approach it? Even after two thousand years of saints showing us what is possible Christians still tend to lean on their strength rather than allowing God to work through our weakness. How often do we withdraw rather than fight, especially when we know we are right? Doesn't this sound like a recipe for defeat? Consider that, for Jesus, it was part of the path to victory. So too may it sometimes be for us. The point is not that justice will never come to victory. But, rather, it is that the true victory does not come about by the flesh, since the war is not against the flesh, but rather by the Spirit.

I shall place my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

..

And in his name the Gentiles will hope.

 

 

Hillsong - I Will Run To You

 

17 July 2026 - presence tense

 

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?

Jesus was the messiah, and therefore the rightful heir to David. David had been fleeing from Saul and his band who desired to prevent him from ascending to the throne. Jesus was being pursued by the Pharisees who similarly did not want to see him succeed in his own mission. David's mission was not merely political. Since he had been anointed by Samuel to succeed Saul, it was at least in part divine. He and his companions was thus permitted to share in the priestly privilege of eating the bread of presence. Jesus was true high priest and King of kings. David's own mission was a prototype of that of Jesus. It thus foreshadowed the coming together of the priestly and the kingly in order to bring about a kingdom where right worship would be perpetually offered to God. In Jesus, in whom the roles of priest, prophet, and king were perfectly united, the normal expression of the rules about the Sabbath did not apply. The Sabbath was, after all, about communion between man and God. But such communion could only be perfectly established by the fulfillment of the mission of Jesus, the perpetual sacrifice of his Body and Blood that he would go on to institute.

Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?

It was appropriate for temple priests to work on the sabbath, because such work was not a distraction from God, but rather done for his sake. Even more so, then, was it appropriate for the disciples of Jesus to be exempt from the demands of the sabbath for the sake of the one whom they served. The temple was a sign that pointed to God's presence. Jesus was himself that presence on earth. It is hard to imagine a more fitting activity for the sabbath than being together with him, and taking whatever steps are necessary to help facilitate abiding with him. Thus do the priests of the Church of Jesus continue to do work on Sunday, the new sabbath, in order to help his modern day disciples to enjoy communion with him and to experience the true sabbath rest that only he can give.

I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.

Mic drop. This can be nothing other than a claim by Jesus of his own divinity. After all, what is greater than the temple except the God for whose worship the temple exists? More to it, who else but the Lord of all could claim to be the Lord of the sabbath? Only the one who himself commanded the observance of the sabbath could possibly be justified in calling himself its Lord. But Jesus claimed precisely this. He thus possessed the wisdom to direct people toward the sabbath rest he intended for them, whereas the Pharisees only used it as a weapon to make things more difficult for Jesus, and to attempt to hinder his plan. They doubtlessly didn't like being implicitly associated with Saul and his men. And they certainly couldn't stomach the rationale Jesus gave for why they were wrong about the meaning of the sabbath. God himself was revealing that their excessive mean spirited rigor was not what he himself desired, but rather that mercy.

If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.

Even when we know the right answers genuinely, and not in a distorted way like the Pharisees, we must not abuse this knowledge. From a higher vantage point the truth is always meant to open out to mercy, not to be used as a weapon, or as a vehicle of condemnation. This is not to say we are to ever compromise with falsehoods or partial truths. And yet the more we focus on being doctrinally correct the more we tend forget that we are dealing with real people who are not intellectual obstacles but fellow men and women made in God's image, brothers and sisters in potential if not in fact. So let us keep our focus where Jesus directed it: himself as Lord, and mercy as his desire.

 

Shane And Shane - Psalm 34 (Taste And See)

 

 

16 July 2026 - yokes on you

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.

Jesus isn't talking primarily about the labor of daily work which has its own dignity and can be satisfying. Adam was instructed to guard and till the garden while he was still in a state of original justice. It was after he sinned that frustration and difficulty entered the picture. Jesus invited all of those exhausted by toil to come to him for rest. It would not necessarily mean a cessation from all work or effort, but rather a freedom from frustration and a stable disposition of peace. Without Jesus all of our work is like that described by the prophet Isaiah:

We conceived and writhed in pain,
giving birth to wind;
Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth.

This is especially true in the spiritual realm. The more that we try to accomplish on our own, or to adhere to the yoke of the law by our own strength, the more we realize that it is impossible for human beings, just as Jesus explained (see Matthew 19:26). Jesus, the new Adam, offers his supernatural strength, enabling us to bear the yoke together with him that he first bore for our sakes. He did what the first Adam could not do and now enables us to do the same through his grace. This allows us to enter into the rest that was always meant for us even while we still have work that needs to be done, both in the world and in our souls. 

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.

We typically assume that the traits that make work easier are mostly competence and efficiency. But to have rest even whilst we yet face challenges the real characteristics that we must learn from Jesus are meekness and humility. Meekness has been called strength under control. Therefore it is not just any kind of strength that makes work easy. It is strength that we don't use in ways that are futile and frustrating. This kind of strength requires humility, which includes patience. Rather than slamming ourselves repeated into doors that won't open we must learn to accept our circumstances as God given and content ourselves to do what we can, rather than trying to force what is clearly impossible.

What is it actually like to share the yoke of Jesus and experience his promised rest? Compared to the frustration of life apart from him it feels like a resurrection, like purpose, like finally believe able to fully live in a way we never could before.

But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise;
awake and sing, you who lie in the dust.
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the land of shades gives birth. 

 

Elevation Worship - Resurrecting

15 July 2026 - hidden from the wise

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.

As we heard yesterday, there were many in Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, and the surrounding areas who witnessed the mighty deeds of Jesus but did not accept his message. They were among wise and learned from whom the Father had hidden its meaning. They chose to believe in their own righteousness rather than admit the possibility that they might stand in need of correction. They were adult, and not childlike, in the sense of having become fixed and rigid in their ways. They were like Syria in that they were overly convinced of their own self-sufficiency.

For he says:
“By my own power I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd.

It wasn't so much the wisdom that people already possessed that was a stumbling block to accepting Jesus. It was their relation to wisdom. The problem wasn't so much that they were in fact wise as that they saw themselves as wise. When their wisdom did occasionally prove to be correct and useful it only reinforced this sense of pride. 

you have revealed them to the childlike.

Although there were many who were closed to Jesus, like teacups too full to hold anything beyond what they already contained, there were others who were able to receive his message. Such knowledge as this group possessed was not so great as to distract them from the possibility that there might be something new and worth learning. Their relation to wisdom was not of possession and manipulation. Rather they were able to discover new things with the openness and awe of children. Because they didn't see wisdom as something they owned they were able to recognize the greater wisdom present in the person of Jesus, who was himself incarnate wisdom. The mighty deeds Jesus performed were thus not wasted on them because they drew them into ever deeper understanding of Jesus' divine identity. The miracles of Jesus were not just for show, not to help him vie for attention in the marketplace of competing ideas, but rather were meant to reveal the loving heart of the Father for humanity.

Therefore the Lord, the LORD of hosts,
will send among his fat ones leanness,
And instead of his glory there will be kindling
like the kindling of fire.

When the Lord does not allow us rest in our unearned and imaginary self-sufficiency it is because of his mercy. He sometimes allows us to fall back upon ourselves and our own resources so we can actually understand how we stand without help. He always wants to help. But he can't allow his benefits to be put to use by us to construct idols in our own self-image. He lets the idols be torn down so that true worship can begin and find a place in us.

No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

Jesus came to reveal something more and greater than the knowledge of scientists and philosophers. He came to reveal the depths of the inner being of God. Without him doing so the God who is three-in-one, who is love itself, would have remained forever obscure to us. We might have understood God as one who was often loving, but without realizing he was love itself. We might have understood God was like a father in relation to his people. But we never would have understood that he himself was a Father except that Jesus revealed it to us. He did so first by living his human life as the perfectly obedient Son of the Father and then by inviting us to participate in his own Sonship, loving his Father together with him. Even today the idea of the Trinity sounds like nonsense to the wise and the learned. We must still become childlike to learn it and see why it matters. But it truly does matter. It changes everything. We are invited to live in an eternal exchange of love. It is the whole meaning of existence. And it is available for anyone willing to become like a child and receive it.

 

DC Talk - Mind's Eye