Friday of Pentecost 21 – Matthew 22:15-22

Matthew 22:15-22

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. ¹⁶ And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. ¹⁷ Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰ And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” ²¹ They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²² When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

The principal looked across the desk at the three students who glowered back at him. There was a great injustice at the school which they knew needed to be addressed. This was not an unfamiliar conversation for him. He had had it every few years. The faces changed, but the drama, angst, and passion of the students was consistent. As usual, their complaint had some merit, but it did not acknowledge the realities of a large, underfunded school. He would do what he could, the students would graduate, and a few years later another group would come in with a new complaint.

He loved these conversations. He was always happy to see their fire and zeal for righting a wrong, even if, in the larger scale of things, it was probably not that important. Some of this school’s best and most important graduates had sat in those chairs and glowered at him and his predecessors over the years. There was at least one state legislator who had sat in those chairs and raised issues with a principal.

“What would you do differently?” he asked. He really did want to know. He wanted to direct them toward something healthful and edifying. He wanted them to start thinking of solutions and not just their anger. He knew that frustrated anger could become a sort of habit. This passion needed to see a way to something good. The students were not entirely satisfied. They almost never were. But they grew that day, another little step toward being an adult.

The religious leaders came Jesus in this reading filled with anger and zeal. They want to destroy Jesus, to catch Him in his words. If he said they should not pay taxes, the Romans would kill him. If he said that one should pay taxes, then the zealous among his followers would abandon him, or so they hoped. Jesus, however, looks and them and loves them. He knows their malice, but He does not react in kind. He deftly turns aside their plots. “Give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and to God that which belongs to God,” He says. He stumped them, but He did not reject them. Later that week, for these events happened in Holy Week, Jesus died for these men who sought His ruin. He willingly endured the destruction which they intend, because he loves them and through that death he forgives their sins and ours.

Thursday of Pentecost 21 – I Thessalonians 1:1-10

I Thessalonians 1:1-10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

² We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, ³ remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵ because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. ⁶ And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, ⁷ so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸ For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. ⁹ For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, ¹⁰ and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

They say that to a teenager holding a hammer everything starts to look like a nail. In more academic circles, this is called confirmation bias. You and your method are looking for a certain result and you shape the data to give you the result you are expecting. I often used this passage in my New Testament classes at the university to show students how this often afflicts us in reading the Bible too. In class I had them read this letter to the Thessalonians in small groups. To each group I assigned one chapter of Thessalonians. Their task was to look for Paul’s words about the end of the world in that chapter. Every chapter in Thessalonians has some reference to the world’s end. They always found it. It is at the end, in the very last verse of the first three chapters. Then, they almost always misread it. They heard Paul speak of God’s wrath and they heard judgment in these words. But look at it carefully. Perhaps you did the same thing. The passage says that Jesus delivers us from God’s wrath. Paul is not trying to make them afraid, but to alleviate their fear.

Just as in Paul’s day, our world is very afraid of the world’s end. They imagined that God must have been very unhappy with the way things were. He would come in wrath, they imagined. Believing ourselves to be gods, our culture couches the world’s end it in terms of climate chaos, nuclear Armageddon, or perhaps some AI generated dystopian future. The outcome is the same. We are addicted to hope, however. Many of the most successful movies are superhero films in which the world is about to end but a heroic figure, a man or woman of supernatural strength or ability, saves the day, defeats the alien monster, or overcomes the evil genius. I find it interesting that we are so drawn to such stories.

Paul turns the attention of his first century readers and us to the hope engendered by Jesus himself. Jesus of Nazareth, crucified for our sins and raised for our justification,  has averted the destruction which we deserved by our sins. Placing himself in that path, he has born its wrath. Yes, the world is going to end. But I am not worried about that.

Wednesday of Pentecost 21 – Psalm 96:1-13

Psalm 96:1-13

Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth!
² Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
    tell of his salvation from day to day.
³ Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous works among all the peoples!
⁴ For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
    he is to be feared above all gods.
⁵ For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens.
⁶ Splendor and majesty are before him;
    strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

⁷ Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
⁸ Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    bring an offering, and come into his courts!
⁹ Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
    tremble before him, all the earth!

¹⁰ Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
    Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
    he will judge the peoples with equity.”

¹¹ Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
    let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
¹² let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
¹³ before the Lord, for he comes,
    for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
    and the peoples in his faithfulness.

In the early 5^th century BC, shortly after the Jewish exiles were allowed to go home, the Persian Empire was expanding to the west, into Greece. A small contingent of Greek soldiers stood in their way at a narrow point between the sea and a mountain. The spot was called Thermopylae. The Spartan king, Leonidas, was told that the Persians were so numerous that when they shot their arrows the sun was darkened. Leonidas’ reply was, “Good, we will fight in the shade!”

The psalmist today seems to have a similar attitude about impending doom. God comes to judge the world in equity and he is organizing a grand celebration. Shouldn’t he be running around in circles, pulling his hair out at the thought of such a judgment. He acknowledges the Lord’s power in verses 4-6 and in the next verses tells the whole world to tremble before Him. But he is planning a party!?

Leonidas of Sparta could see something larger than himself when he fearlessly faced the entire Persian army with a tiny force of his own. He knew that he would die, but he was buying time for the Greeks in the cities behind to get organized. Eventually they won great battles at Salamis and Platea, the Persian threat was turned back. The Persian Emperor, Xerxes, sometimes called Ahasuerus, fled back to Susa, his capital. There he consoled himself after his defeat with a new bride, a young Jewish woman named Esther.

The psalmist likewise knows something which makes his joy reasonable of a sort. He knows that the One who comes to judge is also the One who comes to save, filled with grace, mercy, and love. God does judge this world with equity and perfect justice, but His wrath falls upon His Son, Jesus and we are spared. So let the whole world rejoice. The Word who was with God, who is God, by whom all things were made, has been born in Bethlehem’s stable and died on Golgotha’s cross. Raised in glory, we rejoice to see our judge has wounds in His hands and feet where he paid our sin’s price.

Tuesday of Pentecost 21 – Isaiah 45:1-7

Isaiah 45:1-7

¹ Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
    whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him
    and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him
    that gates may not be closed:
² “I will go before you
    and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
    and cut through the bars of iron,
³ I will give you the treasures of darkness
    and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.
⁴ For the sake of my servant Jacob,
    and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
    I name you, though you do not know me.
⁵ I am the Lord, and there is no other,
    besides me there is no God;
    I equip you, though you do not know me,
⁶ that people may know, from the rising of the sun
    and from the west, that there is none besides me;
    I am the Lord, and there is no other.
⁷ I form light and create darkness,
    I make well-being and create calamity,
    I am the Lord, who does all these things.

George F. Kennan guided U. S. foreign policy in relation to the Soviet Union in the middle of the 20^th century. In his retirement this famous intellectual and diplomat became an avid opponent of nuclear weapons. He truly thought they were evil and should all be abolished. Politically, Kennan was a passionate Democrat which led to a great irony. Retired from the State Department, he could finally express his political views, and he was very clear on this: He had little respect for Ronald Reagan. But it was his enemy, Reagan, who did more to further Kennan’s goal of nuclear arms reduction, than any other president. At one point, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Reagan proposed to the Soviet premier, Gorbachev, that they just get rid of all the nuclear weapons.

Isaiah today has us look to Cyrus the Great, the first emperor of the Medo-Persian empire which replaced the Babylonian empire in latter part of the sixth century BC. Make no mistakes about Cyrus. Cyrus was a wicked man who ruled brutally. But he was also a practical ruler. He saw political gain in making a gesture to the oppressed people of his day and reversed the Babylonian exile policy. This policy had forced people, including the Jewish people, to live far from their homelands. In effect, he ended the Babylonian Exile which had so traumatized the people of Judah 70 years earlier.

Isaiah says that God used Cyrus to do this, and that God had caused Cyrus’ meteoric rise to power. God did so to bring His people home. I am no prophet and cannot discern what God is up in this time and place. But I can see that God uses sometimes strange means to accomplish His kingdom’s goals. I may not know exactly what He is up to right now, but I know Him and I trust the promise that He made through Paul – All things work for the good of those who love God (Rom. 8:28). I will trust Him and pray for those who rule over me. They too are instruments in God’s hands.

Monday of Pentecost 21 – Prayer of the Week

Prayer of the Week

O God, the protector of all who trust in You, have mercy on us that with You as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

A college athletic director sat the football coach down for an after-the-season talk. It was not going to be pleasant. The team had not won a single game. When confronted with this difficult reality, the coach responded, “But when we got to the end of the season, we still had all our time-outs!”

The coach clearly had his priorities in the wrong places. His goal was not to preserve the time-outs which were allotted to each team. After all, they are worthless once the game is over. His goal was to win games and develop the young men in his charge into being better athletes and better people. He should have used the time outs for to those ends.

The prayer asks God for mercy and God’s gracious rule and guidance so we may pass through things temporal without losing the eternal things. We are praying to have our priorities straight and to know what is really important. On a day of judgement, when the heavens are rolled up like a scroll and God ushers in a new heaven and a new earth, the things which the world considers important today will be like time-outs five minutes after a game is over. Unused, they have no value.

So, what are the eternal things? Paul tells us in I Corinthians 13 that even faith, hope and, knowledge will pass away. The one eternal he can see there is love. It does not pass away. Jesus tells us that even a gift of a cup of cold water given to a little one in His name will have cosmic significance. Go do something eternal today. Love a sinner, forgive, feed the hungry, and be a bit of that Light which has come into the world.

Friday of Pentecost 19 – Matthew 21:33-46

Matthew 21:33-46

³³ “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. ³⁴ When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. ³⁵ And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶ Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. ³⁷ Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ ³⁹ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰ When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹ They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

⁴³ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. ⁴⁴ And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶ And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

“Hear another parable.” Jesus is getting desperate, but not because these men to whom he is speaking are about to kill him. He knows how this will play out. It is Holy Week when he speaks these words, those tense days leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection. No, Jesus is desperate for their sake. “Hear another parable.” Why another? He is going to die anyway. They will conspire and plot, suborn his disciple, and finally push his case through a hastily convened kangaroo court. The governor will cave to their demands and Jesus will die the tortuous death of the accursed, crucified by Roman soldiers. He is not trying to change that with this parable. He has come to save this whole world through that death. Peter tried to dissuade Jesus from this earlier in the book and Jesus called that Satan’s way of thinking.  Why another parable?

I see Jesus’ gaze moving from man to man, and they were all men, in that crowd of Pharisees, Sadducees, Priests, and scribes. He stops on each face. Were some of them wavering? Nicodemus had wavered and secretly followed him. Joseph of Arimathea was one of the elites in town. He would ask for Jesus body along with Nicodemus after Jesus’ death. There were those in that crowd who might be called out of their hatred and into something else. That is why Jesus tells another parable.

The religious leaders did not miss the point of the parable. They were the wretched tenants and the owner of the vineyard would surely put them to a wretched end. Does Jesus pause a little longer on the face of the old man in the second row of his enemies. Does he see a glimmer of doubt there? Is that we he is looking for. Does he tell this parable for that man, so he can escape the crushing judgment which follows their terrible deed?

I have imagined all this. I do not know that this scene played out in just this way. But Jesus loved the men who murdered him with a judicial system. He spoke one more parable because he loved them and would that they not participate in this betrayal of justice. Hear another parable and repent. It is not too late. God’s love is deep and wide and enough for you too. Hear another parable.

Thursday of Pentecost 19 – Philippians 3:4b-14

Philippians 3:4b-14

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Did your grandmother ever make button spinner for you? It is one of those old-time toys that grandmothers like to make. String several feet of thread twice through a heavy button, tie it off to make a circle of thread, loop it through your fingers so the button is suspended between your hands. Flip the button so the thread has about ten twists and start pulling your hands apart and then relaxing on the string. The button will start spinning. You can get it moving pretty quickly with a little practice. The trick is to relax the tension and reapply it at the right moment. If you do not know what I am talking about, do an internet search for “button spinner” and you can watch one in action.

Paul sounds a little like that button in this passage. In his previous life, before his encounter with Jesus on a road to Damascus, the tension had been great. It almost broke him. He had become sort of a monster, persecuting people. Christ relaxed that tension and he rebounded the other way, spinning furiously for the Gospel. Here we see him admitting that he has not made it yet, but he says, “I press on to make it my own.” But then, he remembers, and the pressure comes off “because Christ has me his own.”

My picture breaks down a little here. Paul does not now spin back the other way into his old legalism, but the tension and relaxation of God’s Law and Gospel have put a great deal of energy into Paul’s life. In II Corinthians 11:22 he does another similar catalogue of his life, but this time goes past his conversion. He never really did slow down. I get exhausted just reading about it.

God is adding quite a bit of tension into the lives of people these days. I wonder what He is up to with all this. Some days I was weary of this world even before pandemic and tensions which permeate our world now. There have been whole days in which I do not want to check my newsfeeds or listen to the radio. If you need it, you have my permission to sit on the patio or in a favorite chair with the cat or a book for a while today and do nothing. But more importantly Paul reminds us of the great relaxation which God has given us. Paul forgets that which lies behind him. Christ’s forgiveness and love has covered all of it. That frees Paul to look ahead and strive for what God has promised, an upward calling in Christ.

Wednesday of Pentecost 19 – Psalm 80:7-19

Psalm 80:7-19 

⁷ Restore us, O God of hosts;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved!

⁸ You brought a vine out of Egypt;
    you drove out the nations and planted it.
⁹ You cleared the ground for it;
    it took deep root and filled the land.
¹⁰ The mountains were covered with its shade,
    the mighty cedars with its branches.
¹¹ It sent out its branches to the sea
    and its shoots to the River.
¹² Why then have you broken down its walls,
    so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
¹³ The boar from the forest ravages it,
    and all that move in the field feed on it.

¹⁴ Turn again, O God of hosts!
    Look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine,
¹⁵     the stock that your right hand planted,
    and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.
¹⁶ They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down;
    may they perish at the rebuke of your face!
¹⁷ But let your hand be on the man of your right hand,
    the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
¹⁸ Then we shall not turn back from you;
    give us life, and we will call upon your name!

¹⁹ Restore us, O Lord God of hosts!
    Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

The professor looked at the tears streaming down the face of the student who sat in his office. He had never failed a test before. It was not part of his experience. The student understood that he should have studied harder. He should have been more attentive class. He should have read the textbook more carefully. He should have… but he did not. Now, his GPA, scholarships, and eligibility were in jeopardy.

The professor’s impassive face hid a roiling set of emotions. He remembered his own college days, sometimes spent in pursuits which were insufficiently academic in nature. He too had borne the consequences of inadequate study and attention. It would be a simple thing, really, to say that the score did not matter so much. Had he not read somewhere that tests were poor evaluative tools? He wanted to alleviate those tears, to take away their cause. Suffering is hard to watch.

He did not follow that course. He also remembered that his own brush with failure had refocused his entire academic career. Other students had worked hard to perform on this exam and had succeeded. This young man needed to learn this lesson. The score would stand. He could work his way out of the hole he had dug. It would be hard, but he could do it.

We do not know the exact situation of this psalm. Was it written in the days of the Exile or some other affliction which God had visited upon the people of Israel? Using the same image which Isaiah so skillfully enjoined in yesterday’s text, the psalmist here gives us the words of the vineyard whose walls have been broken and which has been ravaged by the wild boar that uproots its vines. “Please” the psalmist cries, “let your face shine upon us that we may be restored.”

The human beings of planet earth in these days might make that their cry as well. We could use a little of God’s face shining upon us. I have no prophecy to share in this regard, except to proclaim that God’s love has never ceased. The professor who let his student’s failure stand did not do so out of some spite. He did it because he cared for the character and life of that student. God hears the prayers of his people today. He responds only in love. It might be unpleasant, but it will be love.

Tuesday of Pentecost 19 – Isaiah 5:1-7

Isaiah 5:1-7

¹ Let me sing for my beloved
    my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
    on a very fertile hill.
² He dug it and cleared it of stones,
    and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
    and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
    but it yielded wild grapes.

³ And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
    and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard,
    that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
    why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵ And now I will tell you
    what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
    and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
    and it shall be trampled down.
⁶ I will make it a waste;
    it shall not be pruned or hoed,
    and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I will also command the clouds
    that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
    is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
    are his pleasant planting;
and he looked for justice,
    but behold, bloodshed;
for righteousness,
    but behold, an outcry!

“You said you would be here!” he barked.

“I had to…”

“Don’t want to hear it. Remember, no excuses.”

I watched this exchange with some perplexity. The man who was barking at his son seemed out of character, unlike the reasonable and gentle fellow I otherwise knew. Later we talked about it. His son was addicted to one drug or another. He had stolen from his parents and others, lied again and again, and disappointed them repeatedly.  It was a pattern I had seen play out in the lives of people who love those are addicted. Yet, with tears in his eyes, this man confessed his love for his wayward son. The son needed boundaries and rules. He had proven himself unfaithful time and again, but he was still his son. He only barked at him because he loved him. The opposite of love is not “I hate you;” it is “I don’t care.”

God laments the vineyard for which he has cared, but which has produced only sour grapes. The people of Israel are the vineyard of the Lord. He looks for justice, but he sees bloodshed. I am reminded of Jesus’ words to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Mt. 5:6). They hunger and thirst because they do not have it.

Isaiah’s prophecy of God’s destruction of the vineyard and the trampling of the vines would find its fulfillment in the Exile, some years after the ministry of Isaiah. In that Exile, God was keeping His promise to His people made at Sinai. He had promised them that if they forgot him, He would call them back, gently at first but with increasing intensity. The people who returned from exile were far more devoted to God than they had been before the exile. In a sense, it worked. It was brutally difficult, but it worked. God still looks upon this world with the profound disappointment of the vineyard owner in this extended metaphor of Isaiah. His providential love sometimes brings difficult things to us. God wants us to repent. The Christian, however, has an insight which the world does not know. One day, about 800 years after Isaiah wrote these words, the blood which was unjustly shed by the children of these Israelites was the blood of Jesus and that has changed everything. God’s love for his rebellious, foolish, violent world is never in doubt. Pandemics, social unrest, hurricanes, forest fires, and whatever else the world can throw at us cannot shake that truth. Jesus has died for this world. No matter how hard God barks at his rebellious children, he always loves them.

Monday of Pentecost 19 – Prayer of the Week

Prayer of the Week

Gracious God, You gave Your Son into the hands of sinful men who killed Him. Forgive us when we reject Your unfailing love, and grant us the fullness of Your salvation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Do you know one of those old couples who “share a brain?” You know the sort. Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you are a widow or widower grieving the loss of your other half. If, so, I pray for you. Such couples complete each other’s sentences. You can hardly imagine them without the other. I remember more than one couple in my ministry whose surviving member did not long survive the death of the spouse. As I look at those couples and their beautiful relationships, I wonder if they, in their 50^th year of marriage, have a sense of being more married today than they were on the day of their wedding.

Of course, as far as the IRS or the government is concerned, being married is a yes or a no question. You cannot be more married or less married. But the law cannot really see some very important things, like love and the intertwining of two lives into a single life. It is blind to that.

We pray today that God grants us the fullness of His salvation. Is salvation something you can have more or less of? Not really, not in one sense. On the day of your baptism, you were fully and completely saved by God. His love has been given to you. You have God’s favor. But on the other hand, like any relationship, this relationship with God can and does grow. Am I more saved today than on the day that I was baptized? Am I more of a Christian? Yes! Thanks and praise be to God. His persistent forgiveness and love for me are like the waters that shape the landscape one droplet at a time. God is shaping me into his person, and we are growing closer to one another. There are many stony places in a human heart which require a great deal of God’s loving erosion to make them fit for heaven. Will God have to break out the drill and insert some dynamite to blast it away? I am a work in progress. The fullness of salvation is something I look forward to. Pray for it today.