Day 8 – Issue 11

Be Still Know

Luke 6:38 NLT

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

There is a challenge to every one of us whenever we talk about the gospel of salvation that it becomes self-centred and self-referential. In a society in which people are rapidly becoming focused upon their needs and rights, the gospel can too easily be reduced to a personal message of salvation alone. However, there is a social dimension without which the whole heart of Christ’s life, death and resurrection is invalidated.

Certainly as I responded to the gospel for the first time in my life, aged 19, I was very aware that I was embracing a message of forgiveness for my own personal sin. Christ had most certainly died for me, yet equally had died for each of the other individuals reaching out for the same salvation alongside me that morning.

As I entered upon what is now a lifetime of pilgrimage following in Jesus’ footsteps, I became increasingly aware that my privilege in becoming a Christian was to embrace a kingdom commitment to the well-being of others. Jesus stated that any action I initiate in reaching out to the ‘least of these’ (Matthew 25:40) is truly reflective of Jesus himself reaching out. While I was personally saved, I was also recruited to become a part of God’s mission to communicate effectively to all of creation.

As a contemplative, I have encountered many individuals who for a variety of reasons are hungry to deepen their own spiritual encounter. However, a number of these wrongly believe that their journey of further formation is one centred entirely upon their exclusive relationship with God. Yet, God, as the Trinity reveals, is a community, and we are called to community. It is the degree to which we learn to live harmoniously alongside those we both agree and disagree with that we declare and reveal the reality of God’s love on the face of the earth.

QUESTION: How might you describe your faith? Is it private or public?

PRAYER: Holy Spirit, teach me and show me how my faith in Christ can be personal but not private, accessible but not aggressive, and how I can share this faith with others.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright C 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc, Wheaton, Illinois 60189 USA. All rights reserved.