Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 22
inhaled in the fragrance of each new health professional who
saved me . . .
worshipped in my expressions of thanksgiving for all that God
had restored in my life . . . for just being alive!
God’s power and might,
restored in those who call on God’s name and abide in God’s
hands.
God’s power and might,
a whisper and a bellow.
God’s power and might,
made available for all God’s people who trust and believe.
God’s power and might,
lived out in the life and death and resurrection of God’s Son
...
so no one who calls on the name of God will be lost.
DEVOTIONAL
Do you live your life based on the viewpoint that people are
generally good or generally bad? And if you’re a preacher,
do you preach from the perspective that people are generally
good or generally bad? I have had to rein in my tendency to
regard people as good, but preach about them as bad.
One sure sign that not all is well with the world, including the
people in it, is the great number of situations for which there
is no perfect answer or outcome. Even our best turns out bad
in some ways.
PRAYER
Industrialization brings great wealth for many (though not
all), but it wrecks the planet everyone depends upon for life
itself. I seek the best for my child, though I’m aware that in
a situation of limited resources my doing so means someone
else’s child will have to go without.
God of all that is behind us . . . of all that surrounds us now
. . . and of all that is yet to be, we shake off the fear of life
without you and discover during this season of Lent that you
gift us with the power and might of Christ in the center of all
life. Amen.
Good things, such as wealth, creation, parental love, and
even God’s gift of “the law,” says Paul, can and often do
become occasions for wrong, not right. Sin, it seems, is not
just about you or me acting badly—it’s a condition affecting
individuals, human systems, and the world itself.
TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2021
The Rev. Trevor Jamison ’01
SCRIPTURE
Romans 7:13-25
13 Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means!
It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in
order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the
commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh,
sold into slavery under sin. 15 I do not understand my own
actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I
hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law
is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that
dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells
within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I
cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I
do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want,
it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is
good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of
God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another
law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to
the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man
that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then,
with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my
flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
22 Lent Devotional 2021
Yet Paul doesn’t write to rub our noses in the mess we
make of life, individually or collectively, so that we despair.
He writes to give us hope. He points us toward God, the
Creator of this world, as the One who saves the world: “Who
will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
So, as followers of Jesus, we try to do the right thing—for
ourselves, for our nearest and dearest, and for those we
hardly know. When that doesn’t work out well (as often
it doesn’t), even if we’re tempted to despair we remain
hopeful, for salvation from this less-than-good situation
depends not on us—it comes from the God made known to
us in Jesus Christ.
PRAYER
God of all creation, thank you for all that’s good with your
world—and for making yourself known in your Son, Jesus
Christ. Encourage me to walk in your ways, and rescue me, I
pray, on those occasions I fail to do so; for You are my hope
and my salvation. Amen.