Saturday after the Seventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 24, 2021 by under
Scripture: St. Luke 11:34-36 (NKJV)
11:34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
Devotion
Jesus demands consistently high standards. As humans we like to see shades of gray everywhere; we want to minimize or excuse the bad things we think, say, or do, and we want to find ways to justify mixing bad deeds with good. But here Jesus teaches what is good is light, and what is bad is dark, and they are completely exclusive of each other. Light drives away and banishes darkness, or else darkness swallows up light. They cannot be mixed, and there can be no compromise between them.
God’s Word often describes itself as a light, especially in Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Jesus calls himself the bright Morning Star in Revelation 22:16, and our hymn beautifully confesses Jesus as the Morning Star and light of our souls (TLH 343, v. 4):
A pledge of peace from God I see
When Thy pure eyes are turned to me
To show me Thy good pleasure.
Jesus, Thy Spirit and Thy Word,
Thy body and Thy blood, afford
My soul its dearest treasure.
Keep me Kindly
In Thy favor, O my Savior!
Thou wilt cheer me;
Thy Word calls me to draw near Thee.
Prayer: O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and on earth, we humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all hurtful things and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
