Lent 4
Devotional
Water From the Well
Lectionary Devotional For Cycle A
Object:
For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light....
-- Ephesians 5:8
To be Christian does not mean you have all the answers. Paul urged Christians whom he declared already to be the light to "try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord." Sometimes this is called sanctification or the continual path of maturing in the faith. Christians are on a journey just like the children of Israel who journeyed across the wilderness were on a journey. The compass by which Christians chart their course is Jesus who is their Lord. Jesus once provided the criteria by which one determined a true prophet from a false one -- by their fruits you will know them. The authority of the church is not in their doctrine but in the fruits of their lives. The fruit of the children of light "is found in all that is good and right and true." What was good, right, and true in Jesus was not his ability to impose answers on society but his ability to demonstrate compassion, communicate forgiveness, and invite people to be reconciled. Such fruits could be exposed to the light because there was no shame in them. While the church should be concerned about right doctrine, because our beliefs shape our behavior, the authority of such doctrines will not be in their abstract truth but in the fruits of their compassionate, forgiving, and reconciling love as experienced by those who walk in darkness.
-- Ephesians 5:8
To be Christian does not mean you have all the answers. Paul urged Christians whom he declared already to be the light to "try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord." Sometimes this is called sanctification or the continual path of maturing in the faith. Christians are on a journey just like the children of Israel who journeyed across the wilderness were on a journey. The compass by which Christians chart their course is Jesus who is their Lord. Jesus once provided the criteria by which one determined a true prophet from a false one -- by their fruits you will know them. The authority of the church is not in their doctrine but in the fruits of their lives. The fruit of the children of light "is found in all that is good and right and true." What was good, right, and true in Jesus was not his ability to impose answers on society but his ability to demonstrate compassion, communicate forgiveness, and invite people to be reconciled. Such fruits could be exposed to the light because there was no shame in them. While the church should be concerned about right doctrine, because our beliefs shape our behavior, the authority of such doctrines will not be in their abstract truth but in the fruits of their compassionate, forgiving, and reconciling love as experienced by those who walk in darkness.
