Saturday after the Fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 15, 2023 by under
Scripture: St. Luke 9:18-26 (NKJV)
9:18 And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
19 So they answered and said, “John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.”
20 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”
21 And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.
Devotion
It is often much harder to fight the interior battle, the battle of your mind and heart, than it is to fight battles in the world outside yourself. It often takes more courage to admit to yourself your own failures, inconsistencies, and ignorance, than it is to fight popes and emperors. The man who can say to himself; “I’m lazy,” or “I’m obsessive,” is a man who allows the Holy Spirit to work in him.
Jesus tells us that unless we have faith like little children we cannot enter the kingdom of God. One aspect of child-like faith is accepting that we are ignorant and vulnerable. Children may be just as willful as adults, but they generally don’t have our over-inflated egos. Children aren’t trying to defend their status in the eyes of the world. They don’t see themselves as wise. They know that there is a lot out there about which they are ignorant. Our lives as Christians ought to be modeled after children in this respect, that we are always examining ourselves, checking to see if we don’t really know what we think we know. We need to check to see if we perhaps are not “off base” in our thinking or feeling. This is a life-long work. It often takes a lifetime to really examine all our assumptions and beliefs to see if they are in line with God’s will.
Prayer: O God, Who hast prepared for them that love Thee such good things as pass man’s understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward Thee, that we, loving Thee above all things, may obtain Thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
