READING:
One-year plan: Judges 9:22-11:40, Luke 12:1-21
Two-year plan: Leviticus 22, Mark 3:1-12
Sometimes you read the Word, and its simplicity is glaring and helpful at the same time. Today’s reading moves me in that direction, particularly as it forces me to ask, “What am I really living for?”
Just before speaking the parable of the rich fool, Jesus said these words: “Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). There’s much in those words, but I’m captured by the urgency (“watch out” and “be on guard”) that indicates the power of greed. The desire for “stuff” this side of heaven can still be so great that we wind up living for the temporary rather than for eternity. Here’s the way one writer, my former colleague, Robert Stein, summarized this picture: “It [greed] is all-consuming, so that all of life becomes focused on the accumulation of wealth. There is no room for anything else, not even God.”*
Read that last line again: “There is no room for anything else, not even God.” That’s an alarming statement/confession that should keep us focused on the Lord.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: What are you living for today?
PRAYER: “God, remind me that all my possessions are the product of Your grace. ”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Judges 12-15, Luke 12:22-48
Two-year plan: Leviticus 23-24, Mark 3:13-20
*Robert Stein, “Luke,” NAC
