Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness. [Luke 4:8 (MSG)]
In The Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 100 begins with the words, “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands; serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.” As a girl, I frequently read those words in my prayer book before worship began. I thought of them again last Sunday. Following the recessional, the visiting pastor exclaimed, “Our worship has ended, let our service begin!” During worship, I’d made a joyful noise and come before the Lord with a song. The minister’s words reminded me that now was the time to serve Him with gladness. The hour or so spent in worship on Sundays is just a small part of a Christian’s life. God blesses us with another 167 hours in the week. How will we choose to serve Him in that time?
Heavenly Father, thank you for the reminder that when our worship ends, the real work of furthering your Kingdom begins. May we not just hear your word, but comprehend it. May we not just say your word, but live it. Let your word turn into our works and cause our faith to turn into action. May we always serve you with gladness.
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. [Kevin Max]
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. [Rabindranath Tagore]
I watched the snowy egret at the beach and couldn’t quite decide if he was an exceptionally smart bird, just plain lazy, or a little of both. Egrets are excellent fishermen and will wade in the shallows stirring up the water with their feet to flush out delicacies like fish, frogs, and crayfish. Other times, they exhibit great patience as they stand nearly immobile for several minutes just waiting for their prey to come near enough for them to strike and catch dinner.
I have a love-hate relationship with my camera and its autofocus. An enormous golden silk spider hangs over the boardwalk we take through the mangroves to the beach. Officially the Nephila clavipes, the female of this species is the largest non-tarantula-like spider in North America. This impressive arachnid has spun her giant orb-like web high above the walkway. She often scares tourists when they glance up to see her suspended above their heads. While I managed to get a shot that of spider, I’d hoped to get a few more of others that have spun their webs down closer to the boardwalk. Autofocus, however, was my enemy. Because their webs were nestled in the trees, the camera looked right through the spiders and focused on the large branches and leaves behind them. My camera focused only on the spider when nothing was behind the creature, but it had plenty on which to focus when pointed at the spiders in the mangroves. The ease of having a small point-and-shoot camera that is so easy to use keeps me loving (but occasionally hating) it.
“Biology!? Math!? English! AAHH!” groans Nancy in a recent one of Guy Gilchrist’s comics. “I shouldn’t have to memorize anything I can Google!!” she protests with a frown. Oh, I feel your pain, Nancy; indeed, I do! Were it not for my Bible’s concordance and Google, I’d be hard put to include Bible verses in my devotions. I can manage to remember the gist of many verses but don’t ask me for chapter or verse and you’d better not quote me because my words won’t be exact. If quizzed on Scripture, I definitely would need an open book test and, like Nancy, would much prefer having access to Google.
An illustration of a man stooped over with an enormous sack on his back adorned the cover of the church program. The man had a troubled look on his face as if thinking, “I’ve got this all this, now what I am supposed to do with it?” The words “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” were superimposed over the picture.
Devotions of the Heart 