Responsible and Responsive

The following page is a summary of the Every Day With Jesus Devotional for Jan./Feb. For ordering back issues visit the link at the bottom of the page.

Front Cover of Every Day With Jesus Jan/Feb Page

Responsible and responsive

FOR READING & MEDITATION - HEBREWS 12:1-12

'Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...' (v.2)

On this the last day of our meditations on the theme of 'Gods Questions', we summarize what we have been saying. God's first five questions in the Bible encapsulate life's ultimate issues. And the way we respond to God's tough and tender questions says a lot about us.

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Acts 4:23-36;

Phil. 3:12-21

1. How was the Early Church both responsible and responsive?

2. What does God provide for us?

The first question, 'Where are you?', was, we said, the theological question which probes our relationship with God. We are invited to come home. The second question, 'Who told you?', invites us to come clear. It is the ideological question that invites us to see if we are willing to recognize our capacity for self-deception and turn away from all beguiling voices to listen to the one true voice of Christ. The third question, 'What have you done?', is the moral and ethical question which is best answered by the admission of our guilt and the confession of all known sin. It is the question that bids us to come clean. The fourth question, the psychological one, 'Why are you angry?', bids us come open - to listen to our emotions, not in a preoccupied way, but in order to hear what they are telling us about our demandingness and goals. The fifth question, 'Where is your brother?', the social and relational question, invites us to come together, to relate to one another in the way Christ relates to us.

Come home. Come clear. Come clean. Come open. Come together. These are the ultimate issues of life. They call us to be responsible and responsive men and women, open to God and open to one another. But we can only stay responsible as we stay responsive to God. You provide the willingness; He will provide the power.

O God, watch over my spirit as I begin a new adventure - the adventure of being a more responsive and responsible person. I am willing; flow through me with Your divine power to make me the person You want me to be. For Jesus' sake. Amen.

Taken from Every Day with Jesus Jan/Feb 2011 Issue, Copyright © CWR. Used by kind permission.

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