Pondering for Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Daily Office Readings for Wednesday of Week One of Epiphany: Year 1

Morning, Psalm 119:1-24; Evening, Psalm 12, 13, 14; 
Isaiah 41:1-16; Ephesians 2:1-10; Mark 1:29-45: 

 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

We are saved through faith – believing. I have always liked to look at faith as that handle or grip by which God uses to pull our souls to God’s Self when we give up the ghost.  Just as our doing won’t earn our way into heaven, so too, our wrong doing shouldn’t keep us out, but our lack of faith will.  It is all a matter of faith, believing, and in believing, we will do what is loving and pleasing in God’s sight. What we do, or not do, then becomes a by-product of our faith or, lack of faith.  

We are who God has made us whether we live into that loving being or not. We were created to do good works based on faith and for good faith-works to be our way of life. However, we have free will. We can choose not to follow who God designed us to be. I don’t believe in specific predestination. But I do believe we are generally predestined to be good and loving people as guided by God’s Holy Spirit.  I think this is what St James is trying to tell us when he says, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” (James 2:26)

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

Let us pray: A Collect for Guidance (BCP p. 100)

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.