The Joy of Glory

Discovering endless joy in the boundless glory of God…

Month: April, 2020

April 2, 2020

Lent Devotional: 2 Corinthians 8:9

Today’s devotional is authored by Dallas Knight 

2 Corinthians 8:9
For you know the grace that was shown by our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich he became poor for your sake, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Reflection
During the Lenten season, we are encouraged to fast and abstain from pleasures in our lives in order to help us better understand the much greater sacrifice of Christ. As we long for these good things it helps us long for and be grateful for the greatest good, Christ, and his atoning sacrifice.

As I’m sure many of you have already pondered, it is quite remarkable that this pandemic has aligned with this Christian season of sacrifice and longing. For the greater societal good, governments around the world request we social distance and have only the most necessary businesses operational, sacrificing our social lives and our finances. Many of us have lost jobs and feel useless sitting at home doing nothing. Or these changes have made it difficult for us to maintain healthy habits or work from home efficiently. We have been forced to endure a Lenten season of sacrifice in a rather unexpected way: we didn’t get to ​choose​ this sacrifice, God determined it for us, and it looks like this sacrifice won’t end until long after Easter Sunday 2020. This sacrifice doesn’t have a known end date, and we get no “cheat days.”

2 Corinthians 8:9 is a helpful reminder in this unique season that Christ’s sacrifice did not consist solely of Holy Week. His suffering was long. The sum total of his suffering was not his arrest, trial, scourging, humiliation, and death, though clearly they are the climax of all his suffering. It began long before when the Son of God put down his right to glory as God, to dwell among sinful people in a broken world. It began when a baby was born to a virgin, having left the riches of glory to be with his spiritually impoverished people, his creation who rejected him in the garden and continued to reject him to the point of killing him on the cross. He put down the richness of his divinity. He took on the poverty of humanity. He left his royal status as an eternal inhabitant of heaven to become a temporary resident of earth, facing all the trials and difficulties we do: hunger, thirst, weariness, meanness, and rejection.

And he’s God! He didn’t ​have ​to endure any poverty. His riches are eternal; he gave them up. That is the grace Paul speaks of here in 2 Corinthians: Jesus’ whole life on earth was a sacrifice, and he endured it willingly for the sake of us. He left the presence of God the Father to be in the presence of an undeserving people in order that they… in order that we… could be made deserving. He left the richness of the presence of God so that we could one day enjoy that very same presence. He endured the poverty of this broken world so that we could receive forgiveness and be restored to God. One day we will enjoy this richness in full in the new heaven and the new earth, in the new Jerusalem where we will finally be in the glorious presence of our Lord forever and ever.

Christ became poor so that we might become rich. As we endure this pandemic-induced lifestyle of sacrifice, let us remember that though he was rich, Christ became poor so that we might–now in part, later in full–enjoy the richness of the Lord.

 

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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April 1, 2020

Lent Devotional: Romans 12:1

Today’s devotional is authored by Emily Knight 

Romans 12:1
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Reflection
How are we supposed to worship?

That’s one of many questions that flew across my mind when everything started shutting down. As classes transitioned to online instruction and my employers started scrambling to figure out a plan, I knew everything we called “normal” about our routines was about to change, and church would certainly be one of them.

And I think you and I have really felt that question grow during this time of self-isolation. God has worked in a gracious and mighty ways during this season, through live-streams and Zoom meetings and phone calls and prayer and study and dozens of other ways.

But we long for when we can return to worship together as a body, in person. And I think this verse helps us understand why — and maybe how we can worship in the interim.

Romans 12:1 sets out a radical paradigm for worship as Christians: it is embodied!

We present our bodies as living sacrifices. We are meant to involve ourselves as whole persons in the worship of the Lord. He doesn’t just care for us as hearts that love, or as minds that think, or wills that make decisions, but also as bodies who live and who die.

The suffering and sickness and death we see around our world matters to him, because He really does care about our bodies — after all, Christ came, had a body, and suffered unto death.

So, we are not completely whole as a church body when we are not able to gather in person. We were made to experience God through community in person, as persons.

And I think this verse also forces us to ask: what are we embodying with our lives as we wait to gather in worship again?

I think there’s a trap that easily ensnares  during this interim, waiting period. The enemy whispers to us that our time stuck at home doesn’t count. Outside of our normal routine, whether life is busier or less busy than it’s ever been, the enemy wants us to think we aren’t really worshipping. It’s just an in-between time, he says, and your actions don’t matter.

I’m not sure how this lie may be tempting you… For me, it’s tempting me to withdraw from friends rather than to reach out, “because we’ll be together again soon enough.” Perhaps you have been fervently praying for loved ones who are suffering sickness, and the enemy wants you to believe your prayers are to no avail. Perhaps you are a healthcare worker, and the enemy is telling you your efforts to aid the suffering aren’t meaningful. Perhaps cooking one more meal at home seems like a thankless task.

But the truth is, we are always embodying something. As humans, we feel and think and act and do and decide – and these things that we do with our bodies, our lives, and our routines actually mean something! They are our acts of worship.

When we fight against the lie that our actions don’t matter, we worship God as the one who has imbued our lives with meaning in the ordinary.

In these days, may we attend to even the smallest of tasks as the greatest acts of worship. May we submit all we have to our Lord. May we cherish the humanity of Jesus, who bestows meaning to our embodied, everyday lives.

**May we also, as we ache to meet as a church body again, prayerfully stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who cannot meet in person because of persecution. Lord Jesus, we entrust the global church to your care and pray you would sustain them each day in your nearness to them.

 

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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