Daily Scripture: 1 Peter 1:18 Live in this way, knowing that you were not liberated by perishable things like silver or gold from the empty lifestyle you inherited from your ancestors. 19 Instead, you were liberated by the precious blood of Christ, like that of a flawless, spotless lamb. 20 Christ was chosen before the creation of the world, but was only revealed at the end of time. This was done for you, 21 who through Christ are faithful to the God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. So now, your faith and hope should rest in God.
22 As you set yourselves apart by your obedience to the truth so that you might have genuine affection for your fellow believers, love each other deeply and earnestly. 23 Do this because you have been given new birth—not from the type of seed that decays but from seed that doesn’t. This seed is God’s life-giving and enduring word. 24 Thus,
All human life on the earth is like grass,
and all human glory is like a flower in a field.
The grass dries up and its flower falls off,
25 but the Lord’s word endures forever.[a]
This is the word that was proclaimed to you as good news.
Your identity as believers
2:1 Therefore, get rid of all ill will and all deceit, pretense, envy, and slander. 2 Instead, like a newborn baby, desire the pure milk of the word. Nourished by it, you will grow into salvation, 3 since you have tasted that the Lord is good.[Footnotes:
1 Peter 1:25 Isa 40:6-8]
Reflection Question:In the book Unchristian, researcher David Kinnaman reported that a stunning 87% of young non-religious people in America believe Christians are judgmental. Kinnaman quoted a 25-year-old named Jeff who said, "Christians talk about hating sin and loving sinners, but the way they go about things, they might as well call it what it is. They hate the sin AND the sinner." Yet Peter wrote that accepting Jesus' love moves us to get rid of qualities like ill will, envy and slander. Love and hate, he believed, do not coexist comfortably in a heart shaped by God's goodness.
Peter referred in 1:23 to Christians having received new birth. Too often, as Kinnaman found, the phrase "born again" leads many to think of a person with a condescending, unloving or exclusive attitude. What qualities did Peter say characterized a person who had been born again by God's power? How has God made your life better by replacing negative qualities like "ill will, deceit, pretense, envy, and slander" with the nourishing inner reality that "the Lord is good"?
Family Activity:
Create a "Love one another" collage. Gather a piece of poster board, magazines, scissors, glue and markers. Invite one family member to write the title "Love one another" on the poster board. Ask each person to cut out pictures of various people and fasten them to the poster. Some family members might even want to draw pictures of people. When your family has completed the poster, take a moment to wonder aloud what the lives of these different people are like. Say, "Often in everyday life we make assumptions or judgments about people we know and people we don't know. God calls us to love all people with His love. How can we each do a better job of loving others?" Pray and ask God to help you do this.
Today's Prayer:
Dear God, help me live authentically in your love and grace, letting go of my need to look superior to others. Teach me to own my struggles, claim your power to transform me and trust that power to transform others. Amen.
Our GPS Insights blog shares reflections each day from our pastors, staff and congregants.
Read today's reflection from Dan Entwistle online. Dan is Resurrection’s Managing Executive Director for Programs and Ministries.
Insight from Dan Entwistle
Dan Entwistle is Resurrection’s Managing Executive Director for Programs and Ministries.
Disgusted?
Let’s be honest. Some things in life are, well, disgusting. And when we become disgusted, it hits us quickly and shows on our faces— we turn down the corners of our lips, or shake our heads, or lurch with a sudden gag reflex, or we simply avert our eyes. It happens.
A friend recently mentioned that there has been a surge in research on the topic ofdisgust. I was curious and discovered that researchers are learning interesting things about our disgust responses . They are studying which parts of our brains “light up” when we’re disgusted. They’re exploring differences between cultures, between men and women, and even between people in different political camps when it comes to what disgusts us. They are working to better understand the psychology and physiology of disgust. How is it important to our survival? Were we born with a disgust reflex or is it learned over time? What societal underpinnings determine the objects of our disgust, and how does one culture become disgusted by something that another culture cherishes?
Often things that create a physical disgust response carry the risk of making us sick, or spread life-threatening disease. Putrid food, for instance, or disease carrying rodents or bacteria-laden waste … [Have I lost all my readers at this point?]
But disgust expands beyond guttural responses to food and bacteria. There is a moral component to disgust, and it is uniquely part of the human experience. It is shaped by culture, theology and our perspectives on morality. We have come to see certain actions as unclean, disgusting or revolting. Often our disgust is turned outward on the “other,” though occasionally it may be turned inward on one’s self. In either case, the pattern of what we find disgusting follows the lines of what we understand to be inside and outside the bounds of moral purity, drawing a distinction between what is clean and what is unclean.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites were given instructions about how to stand apart from their neighbors. They held to a code of behavior as a sign of faithfulness, and as a way of living as called-out people, a nation set apart from their neighbors. Now fast-forward to Jesus. We routinely find him spending time among those who were unclean, or untouchable. “Disgusting” people had direct contact with Jesus, not with him averting his eyes, or turning down the corner of his lips. He did not see the prostitute as disgusting, nor the leper, nor the tax collector , nor the blind or bleeding. They flocked to Jesus, and through the encounter, their spirits were transformed.
Is it any surprise that Jesus shifted the conversation about disgust? Last Sunday, Pastor Adam shared the parable of the two men who went to the temple to pray . One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Who was the audience for the story? The story was told exclusively for the sake of the disgusted righteous people around him. Here’s how the story starts in Luke 18:9, “Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else withdisgust.” The punch line at the end of the story– “Those who lift themselves up will be brought low, and these who make themselves low will be lifted up.”
Feeling disgusted? Yeah, it happens. But as a community that seeks to love deeply and earnestly, let’s put a lid on our disgust for people and allow our responses to be shaped by Jesus.
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224 United States
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