Weekly Devotions for 3/2/2021

March 2 – God Chooses

During Lent, our weekly e-devotion will be taken from the “God Acts” devotional booklet. Please follow along in the booklet for a new devotion each day.

Galatians 5:13-14

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

We live in an age when virtually every entertainment option in existence is at our fingertips. You can pull up most any movie, television show, or piece of music you can think of on demand. Yet have you ever sat in front of the television, scrolling through everything available on a streaming service, and not been able to find anything that sounds good to watch? It happens to me all the time. Studies have actually shown that while we need some choices available to us in order to be happy, too many choices actually decrease our happiness. In the same way, if we focus too much on the decisions that we make to cultivate a spiritual life, we end up feeling further away from God. The Good News is that God has already made a choice for us. The center of our spiritual life is rejoicing in God’s choice, not about making our own choices.

Just as it was possible for Matthew when he sat in the tax booth and the Lord called to him “Follow me,” to follow him, so also must each person who is here in the church know that if the Lord Jesus speaks to him and says “Follow me” it is possible for him to follow the Lord Jesus even as it was possible for Matthew. This possibility, however, does not depend on one’s own powers. – August Hermann Francke