Please come in

Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/

Please come in

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Second Sunday of Advent

Romans 15:5-7  

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in unity with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God.

We’ll be going to church today.  Who are we supposed to welcome? “Welcome anyone who is weak in faith … we who are strong ought to step in and lend a hand to those who falter.  Strength is for service, not for status” (Romans 14:1, 15:1).

Margaret and I leave church after a couple of hours and return to our single family dwelling.  What strangers do we welcome there?  Sometimes I wave or say hello to people walking by. What if they waved back, then came up and asked for food or shelter?

God insists that I say YES, and invite them in.  God wants me to share what I have.  “Freely you have received, freely you are to give.”

God doesn’t worry about material losses I might experience by giving; he is concerned about the certain loss I’ll endure by NOT giving.

Yesterday’s reading from Isaiah 30 comes to mind again today: “On the day the Lord binds up the wounds of his people, he will heal the bruises left by his blows.”  Each moment I believe those words in my body and my soul, in that moment I am free to give all I have and not be afraid.

There are no consequences that God will not bind up and heal.

Jesus, you come and become one of us.  Like ours, your flesh might be exhausted or in agony, but still you rescue the poor.  You might cry out in your own pain, but you touch the afflicted when there is no one to help.  You have pity for the lowly and the poor, and you save their lives.  Strengthen us as you send us out to do the same. (Psalm 72)

http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1204