Easter Devotional - Day 40
"Yahweh says: 'Don't brag about your wisdom or strength or wealth. If you feel you must brag, then have enough sense to brag about worshiping me, Yahweh. What I like best is showing kindness, justice, and mercy to everyone on earth.'" Jeremiah 9:23-24
Kindness, justice, and mercy have no need to brag. They are not focused on the one employing them. They find their focus instead on meeting the needs of others. Their rewards are internal, not external. They are their own fulfillment, not requiring the praise or the apparent inferiority of others. They create worth in their own right, without the need of comparison with others.
Bragging, on the other hand, focuses on building one up from comparison with or praise from external sources. If I need to brag, it is because I feel unappreciated, unworthy, or in some sense less than someone else. Bragging betrays a personal sense of inferiority that must be muted by external voices of praise and comparison to those who do not measure up to one's achievement.
Jeremiah asserts bragging as a futile exercise. We can never reach the stature of God. We can never truly measure up. Instead, we should look to God for a true source of fulfillment, purpose, and worth as servants of the Almighty. God would have us brag in regard to participation in God's action of kindness, justice, and mercy to any and all. Significantly, to everyone on earth, not just those toward whom we would naturally act with kindness, justice, and mercy.
We tend to see the Hebrew Scriptures as promoting the idea that only the chosen people were worthy of Yahweh's attention. We read them as ethnocentric, setting forth the worth of this nation as far above that of the rest of the peoples of God's creation. Jeremiah would beg to differ. He posits God's words as negating such a concept. He characterizes God as caring just as much for any and all other peoples as for the descendants of Abraham. There was nothing intrinsically special about this one nation in particular. They were no better than the rest. They did not need, however, to compare their worth to that of other nations. There was no good reason to brag about their standing before God in order to establish themselves as superior. What was needed to establish any true sense of superiority, was for them to live and act according to the character of Yahweh, the one to whom they claimed to belong.
If their lives were characterized by kindness, justice, and mercy, that would in itself establish them above the other nations. If they were to allow God's character to flow through them, they would not be struggling with a sense of inferiority or the need to compare themselves with other nations. The kindness, justice, and mercy of Yahweh would refocus their attention off their inferiority complex and create the sense of worth they needed from within.
The nations considered these attributes of true righteousness. Caring for the destitute, powerless, disenfranchised, and foreigners was a shared concept of righteousness. What was lacking was the will to follow through according to Yahweh's desire. If they would bow to serve God responsibly, that would give them worthy grounds to establish a superior standing among the nations. The only thing lacking would be to accept the superiority that comes from serving according to God's character and identity.
Give kindness, justice, and mercy room to grow in your life, increasing your sense of worth.
"Lord, grant me the confidence that comes of trusting you and living the character of Christ."
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
My latest books can be found here on amazon
Kindness, justice, and mercy have no need to brag. They are not focused on the one employing them. They find their focus instead on meeting the needs of others. Their rewards are internal, not external. They are their own fulfillment, not requiring the praise or the apparent inferiority of others. They create worth in their own right, without the need of comparison with others.
Bragging, on the other hand, focuses on building one up from comparison with or praise from external sources. If I need to brag, it is because I feel unappreciated, unworthy, or in some sense less than someone else. Bragging betrays a personal sense of inferiority that must be muted by external voices of praise and comparison to those who do not measure up to one's achievement.
Jeremiah asserts bragging as a futile exercise. We can never reach the stature of God. We can never truly measure up. Instead, we should look to God for a true source of fulfillment, purpose, and worth as servants of the Almighty. God would have us brag in regard to participation in God's action of kindness, justice, and mercy to any and all. Significantly, to everyone on earth, not just those toward whom we would naturally act with kindness, justice, and mercy.
We tend to see the Hebrew Scriptures as promoting the idea that only the chosen people were worthy of Yahweh's attention. We read them as ethnocentric, setting forth the worth of this nation as far above that of the rest of the peoples of God's creation. Jeremiah would beg to differ. He posits God's words as negating such a concept. He characterizes God as caring just as much for any and all other peoples as for the descendants of Abraham. There was nothing intrinsically special about this one nation in particular. They were no better than the rest. They did not need, however, to compare their worth to that of other nations. There was no good reason to brag about their standing before God in order to establish themselves as superior. What was needed to establish any true sense of superiority, was for them to live and act according to the character of Yahweh, the one to whom they claimed to belong.
If their lives were characterized by kindness, justice, and mercy, that would in itself establish them above the other nations. If they were to allow God's character to flow through them, they would not be struggling with a sense of inferiority or the need to compare themselves with other nations. The kindness, justice, and mercy of Yahweh would refocus their attention off their inferiority complex and create the sense of worth they needed from within.
The nations considered these attributes of true righteousness. Caring for the destitute, powerless, disenfranchised, and foreigners was a shared concept of righteousness. What was lacking was the will to follow through according to Yahweh's desire. If they would bow to serve God responsibly, that would give them worthy grounds to establish a superior standing among the nations. The only thing lacking would be to accept the superiority that comes from serving according to God's character and identity.
Give kindness, justice, and mercy room to grow in your life, increasing your sense of worth.
"Lord, grant me the confidence that comes of trusting you and living the character of Christ."
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
My latest books can be found here on amazon
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment