Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Tuesday, 26 August 2014 "The perfect bond of unity"

Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Tuesday, 26 August 2014 "The perfect bond of unity"
Daily Scripture: Colossians 3:12-14 So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
Reflection Questions:
The apostle Paul trained to be a rabbi (cf. Acts 22:3). It's no surprise that, after he became an itinerant Christian preacher, he taught his Gentile converts the principles of speech and relationships found in Proverbs. But he added a powerful additional motive to his teaching: Jesus' example. "As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other," he wrote.
Paul called all of Christ's followers to show five qualities: "compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." When have you showed those qualities toward someone you love, or has that person showed them toward you? What other responses might you or they have chosen? Would those alternatives have made things better or worse?
Every week in worship at Resurrection, we pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Colossians said, "As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other." How does accepting, down deep inside, that God forgives you transform your approach to forgiving others? What factors make seeing yourself and others as "forgivable" particularly significant in building durable marriage and family relationships?
Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, please keep shaping me into a person of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Give me the grace to forgive as you've forgiven me. Amen.
Insight from Rev. Glen Shoup
Don’t miss that opening phrase in today’s reading…as God’s chosen people.
I don’t simply mean make sure you read it; I mean don’t merely read it.  Don’t simply compute on a cognitive level what Merriam-Webster says the words mean—but rather—Stop.  Get out of the mental car that you’re speeding much too quickly in towards the next destination on your calendar—and take this in…NOW (sorry for shouting but I need your attention because you need to get this).
God chose you.  Not just any god—but The God (the One who Created and is the Genesis of everything else that we tend to make other gods out of—That God) chose you.  The Creator of the cosmos—Who is all-powerful and all-knowing—made a conscious and on-purpose decision to pick you.  You with your habits and faults.  You with your past and your stuff that nobody else knows about…other than Him.  You with your propensity to be short-sighted and self-addicted—The God Who is before all, beyond all and redeeming all…chose you!
Why?  Well that’s the most confounding part of this whole Gibraltar of truth that you’ve unwittingly stumbled upon today: God chose you because He’s flat crazy about you.  He loves you like the proudest of parents who has all their hopes and dreams wrapped up in their child…because He is and He does.  There’s nothing you’ve ever done that He won’t forgive and there’s nothing you’ll ever do to make Him stop loving you.  He loves you so much that He’d die for you without ever giving it a second thought…in fact He did…He’s just crazy about you and there’s nothing He wouldn’t do for you.
So you’ve just got to get this today: God chose you!
The reason you’ve got to get this is because when you do, it gives you responsibility.  Oh, I don’t mean responsibility in the negative, burdensome and confining way we tend to hear that word; I mean the freeing, empowering and tranforming possibilities that this word literally conveys—the ability to respond.  When you truly get that God has chosen you, you are empowered with the gracious ability to respond.
So you’ve got to get this today: God chose you!
Therefore…(in response to the life-defining reality that God chose you)…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:12-14).
Rev. Glen Shoup is the Executive Pastor of Worship and a Congregational Care Pastor.
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