Today's Meditation
Read Matthew 28:16-20
16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Last Saturday the meditation was on Psalm 111, particularly verse 10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who practice it have a good understanding." Yesterday's meditation was on the reading from Acts 2 - the day of Pentecost - and I mentioned that perhaps the Universal Language of God's Holy Spirit was the language of love. Here in the last words in the Gospel According to Matthew, Jesus gives his disciples instructions (even though some still doubted). Those instructions are now known as the Great Commission, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Today, I want to tie all of these together.
The last few months have been a huge internal spiritual growing time for me. I believe that my awe of God in the last few months has led to a search for knowledge in the Lord which has in return begun a spark of wisdom within my soul. (Maybe that all just comes from age, but we'll go with it!) A few weeks ago friends of mine were talking about the message that various ministers offer their congregations. Some of them still offer messages of hellfire and brimstone, some offer a message from an angry God set out to claim retribution for sins seeking repentance or we won't enter heaven, others offer a more conciliatory message of forgiveness, and some simply offer a higher level of understanding. Friends then asked me, "So, Walt, if you could boil down your message, what would it be?" After some thought and careful consideration, I believe and I hope that I offer a God of love; not just a God of hearts and roses, but a God who stretches out his arms wide enough for the whole world and embraces them in tears, in joy, in laughter, in solidarity, in pain, in all aspects of the human condition; a God who knows us to our core and accepts us as we are while at the same time pushes us to be more - who spoke a word of love and we were created.
Then finally today, this Great Commission, urges us as believers to go out into the world and do the very same thing that God has done for us. To seek wisdom, to love without limits, and to bring God's children home.
May you, too, find a home in God today.
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