Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Devotional 140910

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Before I head out for two appointments, I would to leave you with the devotional thought of Eugene Peterson that I read this morning. It is a good reminder for us who live in a culture of consumerism, not to be swallowed into its under-current.

Because an appetite for God is easily manipulated into a consumer activity, we need these wise, sane friends as guides and companions. There are entrepreneurs among us who see the wide-spread hunger for spirituality as a marketplace and are out there selling junk food. The gullibility of the unwary who bought relics from itinerant monks in the Middle Ages—splinters of wood from the true cross, finger bones from the saints, a few pieces of thread from Jesus’ seamless robe—is more than matched by North Americans in matters of spirituality.

We are trained from the cradle to be good consumers. It is understandable that we seek to satisfy our hunger for God along the lines in which we have been brought up. But it is not excusable, for we have clear counsel in the Gospels to steer us away from this consumer world: “Blessed are the poor . . . Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me … Love not the world nor the things that are in the world.” And our Lord’s counsel is confirmed and expanded in numerous ways by our wise evangelical ancestors in the faith. “The world with all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” (1 John 2:17 The Message).

Living in His unconditional love
Lawrence

No comments: