Missionary Renegade: Daily Guide/Daily Devotion grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Daily Guide/Daily Devotion grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Wednesday, 1 July 2015 - “'All in' for the kingdom of heaven"

Daily Scripture: Matthew 13:44 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. A man found it, hid it again, then in great joy went and sold everything he owned, and bought that field.

45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for fine pearls. 46 On finding one very valuable pearl he went away, sold everything he owned and bought it.

Reflection Questions:
In these compact stories, Jesus told of two people who “laid it all on the line” in order to gain a one-of-a-kind treasure. Their actions seemed odd in the short term—we can imagine their friends and family asking, “What do you think you’re doing?” Yet in light of the treasure they had found, their initially puzzling choices and values were right on target.

What changes and choices have felt (or feel) to you like the “costs” of following Jesus? Jesus' stories taught that this temporary, temporal world is a drop of water in the spiritual ocean of eternity. How has Jesus added inner richness, meaning and beauty to your here-and-now life? What is helping you grow into a deep-seated trust that eternity in God’s kingdom is worth whatever it might “cost” you today to follow Jesus?
Jesus said the man who found the treasure went “full of joy” to obtain the field. Far too many people have experienced faith in Jesus as a source of guilt and heaviness, not of joy. What parts (if any) of serving Jesus, and others in Jesus' name, have brought you the most joy? In what ways is this joy deeper than the surface happiness our world tends to offer?

Today’s Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank you for using these short stories to teach big ideas about your kingdom and its value. Guide me through your Spirit as I seek to live into those big ideas in my everyday life. Amen.Insights from Wendy Connelly

Wendy Connelly, wife to Mark and mom to Lorelei & Gryffin, is Community Outreach Director at the Leawood campus, a graduate student at Saint Paul School of Theology, Faith Walk columnist for the Kansas City Star, and co-leads the “Live and Let Think” dialogues at Resurrection Downtown.
Being “all in” for the kingdom calls to my mind the experience of falling in love. The initial, wrecking waves of emotion; the swooning, exaggerated gestures nauseating passers-by; and the tunnel-vision that so fills the attention and faculties of the love-struck can leave those on the outside dumb-struck, scratching their heads. But for the pair caught up in romance, they are happy fools–all lesser things fall away.
“To be wise and love,” writes Shakespeare, “exceeds man’s might.”
So it goes, I think, with the divine romance. God, like a great lover, pursues us. Rescues us. Wrecks us. The entire biblical narrative, from the first question of the Torah, records this quest: “Ayeka, Adam?” “Ayeka, Eve?” … Where are you?
When we, the beloved, recognize that God laid it all on the line for us, and grasp the weight of this cosmic gesture, we become wooed to the kingdom. It’s why the saints were known as “God’s fools”—they were “all in,” entranced by love, willing to risk everything for the One who Is everything. And in this strange and upside-down kingdom, the treasures of life belong to God’s fools.