Wednesday, August 23, 2023
I guess it
was inevitable; that closet had been crying-out for years to be cleaned. I could
no longer pretend that disorganized heap of stuff would heal itself. Besides, what else do retired preachers
do? Since Monday the task has begun to
include two other rooms in the house; it will be a little while before this
project is concluded. What was I
thinking?
The Roman
officer may have had the same thought.
That servant of his was sick.
That presents two possibilities (at the least) as to why he went to the
Nazarene preacher. This officer may have
been uniquely-compassionate for an important man, and was anxious to help him,
or perhaps it was just that the servant couldn’t serve if he was bedridden; the
officer’s “compassion” was more self-serving…a healthy servant would make the
Roman’s life easier. Jesus identified
the officer’s request as sincere faith, so we must attest to his compassion as
no less.
However, if
we take into consideration that this Roman soldier’s prayer is lodged in the
presence of a largely Jewish audience, we understand they were probably
wondering why Jesus bothered healing the servant of a Gentile “dog”. But Jesus, grasping this teachable moment, holds-up
the humble, authentic trust of this Gentile, in contrast to the treachery of
the Jewish religious leaders masquerading as faith which he would have to
shortly endure. Jesus’ teaching here was
a gut-check for not just the crowd following at that moment, but for all of
us…every day. Sometimes that which we
assume is our genuine faith, is just what we’ve hung in our religious closet
for so long, we cannot see how crowded our “faith” is with stuff that doesn’t
belong…
·
An attitude that won’t budge
·
A secret hate for an arrogant co-worker
·
Claiming a pure life, while hiding impure desires
·
…and so the myths keep rolling.
For You Today
We all have
that closet-cleaning thing to which we must attend. Life is messy, and it creeps into our
thoughts, attitudes, and selfish ways telling us the damning, but enduring myth,
that we are put here on this planet to do what makes us happy.
Like the
Roman soldier’s compassion for his servant called-out his duty to do something,
and my clothes closet called to me to come clean, so we are
compelled to look deep into our faith, and how we’re
called to be IN this world for God’s purposes – not part OF
this world to serve our own desires.
There are about 2,600 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.
Title Image: Russell Brownworth (own work) Images without citation are in public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT©
