Daily Office Readings for Thursday of the Last Week of Epiphany: Year 1
Morning, Psalm 37:1 to 18; Evening, Psalm 37:19 to 42;
Deuteronomy 7:6 to11; Titus 1:1 to 16; John 1:29 to 34;
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)
What an honor, to be chosen by God to be God’s chosen out of all the people of the earth! However, this “chosen” status does not make them superior. It is a calling to spread the word about the One, Loving God, to the entire world.
Moses is continuing the call of God that was first started in Abraham when God called him from his father’s house to the land promised to be the starting place for true religion. (Genesis 12:1) From this place the Word of God spreads over the earth-globe through the Incarnate Word, Jesus our Lord. The invitation to be “chosen” now extends to the whole of humanity. Much care is required for True Religion. It was easy for the people following Moses to get it wrong and it has been easy for us who follow our Lord Jesus to get it wrong. We inevitability add structures to religion that have nothing to do with God’s call.
Anything that divides us or in any way diminishes others is disingenuous to the message of inclusive love that God wants us to show the world. Such inclusiveness has no boundaries of race, gender, political affiliation, language, nationality, or even how the other might find a path to God as long as such a path is also as inclusive as we should be striving to be. We become God’s treasured possession when we inform others that they too are God’s chosen people.
Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
onewhoponders 