Thursday: Scripture: Ephesians 2:14-22 Text: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” Ephesians 2:19 The most painful and prevalent disease of our age, so psychologists are quick to inform us, is “alienation.” People have become strangers to each other. The ties which ought to bind them together, in families and communities, have dissolved. Everyone seems to live and die to himself. No longer are there strong roots to nourish the life of the soul. This has bitten so deeply into people’s hearts, that they don’t even know themselves. Yet with all this they ache for understanding, friendship and love. Without it they cannot live. All this, so Scripture tells us, springs from sin. We have separated ourselves from God who is our true life; therefore we are alienated from each other and ourselves. But thanks be to God, who has shed abroad His love in Christ Jesus! By grace He brings us into covenant-fellowship with Himself. He has become our heavenly Father who can heal all the hurts of life. And this He does, by bringing us into His kingdom and family. We now, by belonging to Him, also belong to each other. No longer may there be separation between Jew and Gentile, between rich and poor, between old and young. And this is signified and sealed to our hearts also at the Lord’s Supper. There we sit together as fellow-citizens and as brothers and sisters. Let us, then, rejoice in that fellowship. And to prepare ourselves for partaking of Christ, let us cleanse ourselves from all indifference, bitterness, and envy which would separate us from Christ as well as from each other. Here we must practice the rule of obedient love, welcoming each other with joy. Those who refuse to love their fellow-believers, forgiving each other from the heart, cannot receive the love of Christ. God leaves them in their self-willed loneliness. Prayer: “O blessed Father, who has called us into Your family, forgive us for what we have thought and done against any of Your children. Grant grace that before we come to the Supper we may forgive each other freely and walk in love for Christ’s sake, in whose name we pray, Amen.”
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 12:36:39 +0000
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