August 2025
Devotion
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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The Greek word in Colossians 1:15 for image is “Eikon”. You might recognize that in English we have a derivative word: Icon. We deal with icons daily on computers to represent abstract, invisible, things. When I want to delete a file I drag the file icon to the trashcan icon. The file icon represents invisible computer code. The trashcan represents another piece of code that deletes the file. It's all invisible to the human eye, but the icons make it real for us by representing the invisible thing. Without the icons we would not be able to understand or interact with the code. John 1:18 tells us that, “No one has ever seen God [the Father]; the only God [Jesus], who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” We know God the Father because he sent us his Son, his icon or image, who makes the invisible God visible and understandable to us. My illustration is a little flawed because Jesus does not just represent God the way an icon represents the computer code. He is God, and has always been God. But God knew, like computer designers, that we needed an icon that we could understand and experience, and so he sent his Son who is fully God and fully man to be the icon we could understand. God loves us so much that he humbles himself into a form we can know. A form that his disciples could experience with all five senses. A form that they could write about and transmit to us all these years later. So when we read the gospel accounts of Jesus, we are experiencing the eternal, invisible, all powerful God. When we take communion we are eating and drinking the eternal, invisible, all powerful God. This is a profound mystery, but it has great importance for the Christian life. Paul continues in Colossians chapter 2 to exhort believers to focus their minds on the visible image of Christ rather than “philosophy and empty deceit.” Focusing on Christ protects us from false beliefs because he is understandable in a way that abstract ideas are not. In Chapter 3 he encourages them to moral excellence because they bear the image of Christ. Here, focusing on Christ protects us from sinful behavior because we know we are being remade in Christ’s image. In the words of the classic hymn:
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Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
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In the Christian life, we often have downer days. Days where it feels like we can’t doanything right. Where we can’t live up to our ideals of what we ought to be. We have dayswhere it feels like nothing goes right because of other peoples ’bad choices. And as weage, we notice the onset of health issues leading the ultimate health issue. In 1 Cor. 15 Paulhas been describing the overwhelming forces of Law, Sin, and Death. These are ourultimate enemies since the fall of Adam. This army of downers is too much for us alone. ButPaul isn’t telling them about their foe so that they will give up. On the contrary he is aboutto tell them the greatest news there is.In 1 Cor. 15:57 he sums up his argument by saying, “But thanks be to God, who gives us thevictory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The operative word here is gives. We know aboutJesus and the cross. We know that is God’s way of redeeming us, but it is hard to grasp dayto day that he continually gives us the victory. Note that gives is in the ongoing presenttense. It has no beginning and no end. He gives today the same as he gave yesterday andwe can trust that he will give tomorrow as well. And so we give back thankfully, not to God,but to our neighbor.Paul goes one step further in v. 58 to call us to a joyful response. “Therefore, my belovedbrothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing thatin the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Dallas Willard has a famous quote, “Grace is notopposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” While God gives us the victory, we gladlyrespond with good works for our neighbor.We pray: God, thank you today and everyday that you continually give us victory. Help us torespond with gifts of our time, talent, and treasure so that we may share the Gospel withthose who are suffering and in need of your free gift.
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Mark 12:30–31 “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.
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Every person in Jesus’ time who had completed basic synagogue schooling would have been able to give this answer to the question posed by the scribe in Mark 12. Jesus gives the most plain vanilla answer to the question by quoting the two greatest commandments from Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18. This summary of the Law was very common knowledge for the Jews in this time period. Like 2+2=4 level of knowledge. Nothing remarkable in his answer, but the rest of their interaction is interesting. We have three parallel accounts of the interaction in Matthew 22, Luke 10, and Mark 12 which enhance our understanding of the story. This conversation is not combative like all the other encounters Jesus has had in Mark 12 where different factions are asking him tough questions and trying to catch him in his words. In Mark 12:30-31 Jesus is responding to a scribe who is sympathetic to Jesus mesaage. He wants to be justified Luke tells us (10:29). And Jesus tells him in Mark 12:24 “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Not far. But he doesn’t say that he is IN the kingdom of God. That is because knowledge of the law earns you nothing. It will not even allow you to earn your way into heaven by teaching you how to do good works. The law of God exists primarily to convict us of sin and our need for a savior. We can’t love God perfectly and we can’t love our neighbor as we ought. Thankfully, this particular scribe will not need to wait long to find the savior he needs because Matthew, Luke, and Mark all include this story in their accounts of Jesus’ passion week before his crucifixion. This scribe got a front row seat to the events of the first Easter. We don’t know how he responded to the news of Jesus' death and resurrection (he is not named in any of the accounts), but we have his example to guide our lives now. Don’t seek to justify yourself with right knowledge or good deeds, enter the kingdom the only way we can, through the “narrow gate” of Jesus. We pray: God, please help us to rely only on the one you sent to be our savior.
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Help us to trust in him alone when we are tempted to justify ourselves with knowledge or good works. Amen.
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James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
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The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. I’m going to admit right off the bat that I find prayer and confession very mysterious. Mysterious in the good sense. Like I will never know the full picture of how and why it is powerful. I know we are commanded to pray and taught how to pray in the Bible. I know we are commanded to confess our sins to one another, and to proclaim forgiveness to one another in the stead of our Lord Jesus. I have experienced the healing power of forgiveness spoken to me by a pastor or by a fellow believer. I have experienced the miraculous results of praying for God’s will to be done in my life. What I find mysterious is that simple words spoken to God or another person can be so effective at changing our lives. So I’ll just focus on just one aspect of prayer and forgiveness that I do understand. Prayer and confession put us in the proper relationship with God and our fellow believers. When we pray we are placing ourselves in the correct posture towards God. He is our allpowerful, loving father and we are his supplicant children. We pray, ”your kingdom come, thy will be done” because we trust his plan is better for us than seeking our own desires. We also seek to share God’s love with others: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” Prayer changes us from the inside out because it properly aligns us with God’s will and authority in our life. Confession also puts us in a correct posture towards our fellow believers. It is easy to go through life thinking, “At least I’m better than that guy” or “I’m so much worse than anyone knows.” The first is pride and the second is shame. Neither is an accurate picture of who we are in Christ. Confession brings us back into proper alignment with God’s other children. We are not better than our fellow believers. We are not worse. We are all equally God’s dearly loved children. Prayer and confession help to restore us to a right understanding of who we really are. We Pray: God please help us to make use of the power of prayer and confession in our lives every day. Help us to remain in a proper alignment with you and all your children so that we may become more like Christ, trusting in you and loving our neighbor in word and deed. Amen
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Isaiah 41:10 Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah is often called the Gospel of the Old Testament because it speaks so often of the Lord’s active comfort, peace, and salvation for us. Isaiah 41:10 is one of the clearest and most quoted because it offers strength and protection for us fearful, trustless creatures. Let’s focus first on the phrase” righteous right hand.” The right hand in the Old Testament was your sword hand. Even left handers typically used their right hand as sword hand because their opponent likely had a sword on the right and a shield on the left so when you faced them you could protect with your left and strike with your right. But a sword, like any weapon, can be used for good or bad. God could strike us down with his right hand, but he does not. He uses his power for good in our lives. He is righteous with his power. All powerful God has you protected with his powerful right hand. Fear is the next part I’d like to focus on. Creatures, including humans, have three possible reactions to fear: fight, flight, or freeze. These don’t always lead us into our best behavior. An excess of fight is the sin of wrath. An excess of flight is cowardice. And an excess of freeze can lead us to sloth. Our God-given instincts can lead us astray if we let them go too far. God speaks peace to us in the face of fear so that we can do something different than our instincts tell us. When provoked to wrath we can trust God to be our avenger and instead choose a path of peace. When we are tempted to retreat in cowardice we can trust God, and have courage to step forward and do the right thing. When our instincts tell us to choose inaction (sloth), we can trust that God will give us the right course of action. We have a great example of this in the life of Jesus. We do not have to act on our fear alone. We can trust all-powerful God when we are in fearful situations, and live as Jesus did. Even though Jesus was human and subject to all the same fears we are, he trusted God in every situation.