2615AFC041026 – Day by Day← PODCAST LINK 😀
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Acts 2:43, 46-47 – 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
1 Peter 1:8-9 – 8 Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Psalm 118:13-14 (GNT) [1]–
13 I was fiercely attacked and was being defeated,
but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord makes me powerful and strong;
he has saved me.
Psalm 56:10-11 –
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I am not afraid.
What can a mere mortal do to me?
John 20:19 c-23 – 19 c Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! I am going to try one more time today to send this to you by email. Last week’s post was blocked by MicroSoft because they thought I was SPAMming you. It took three days to untangle that mess, and some of you still might not have received an email copy. I may be forced to find some sort of expensive mailing APP so we can continue to do this. If that isn’t a successful solution, then the only way I can think of to share these messages would be for you to go directly to the website at your convenience – on Friday morning or any other day of the week – and look for it in the archives. I want to thank you for agreeing to receive these, and I hope that I can continue to send them to you via email.
Today’s Key Verse from the Book of Acts emphasizes the phrase “day by day.” This expression connotes for me change that can occur gradually or with great speed. “little by little,” or “in leaps and bounds,” change overtakes us daily. Sometimes we notice it. Often we do not. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” That is often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt or Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda. Whoever said it first, it is a clever way to evoke that attitude of gratitude for the present moment. The past is irretrievable and the future is unknowable, so the moment called “now” is where we should live. Does that mean we cannot ameliorate the things in the past or plan for the things in the future? Most certainly not. We can look back or forward, but we cannot – must not – dwell there.
This is a very hard lesson to learn. Once learned, it is a skill easily lost. It requires an unwavering focus despite endless distractions. If we lose that focus, it can take time to get it back, but if our commitment to staying focused was strong, we can regain it more quickly that it took to master it originally. The key factor is both learning and relearning that sort of focused-intent is commitment to a goal – a goal that is “larger than one’s self and outside of one’s self.” That kind of commitment is usually called Love. It could be Love for a person in our lives or Love for the Person who is Love – God. A daily commitment, daily consecration, or daily intentional effort will be required to sustain the kind of change required to “stay the course.”
This kind of single-mindedness is an essential component in Twelve-Step plans and other life-affirming self-improvement or self-help practices. Back in the 1920’s, a man name Émile Coué promulgated the idea that intense, frequent, and consistent repetition of a phrase could trigger the subconscious to conform to the expected outcome of that phrase. He developed something akin to “self-hypnosis” which came to be called “Couéism” later on. the phrase he advocated was “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” It worked for some people, but not for others, and often the change was ephemeral. I believe that was because it was not something “larger than one’s self and outside of one’s self.” But what does that mean anyway?
God. God and country. My family. My spouse or other loved one whom I esteem above all others. All of these are “larger than one’s self and outside of one’s self.” I have previously said here “if the only place you go to find your self is inside yourself, it could be that all you will find is your individual selfhood. Beloved, there is so much more to life than that!” Our sense of selfhood can be diminished by judgments against us by others – whether merely imagined or actual – or by our own self-deprecations. Either way, we are not using someone or something larger than one’s self and outside of one’s self.
We have all seen this sticker. It conveys the message that HE – God is greater than I. Read properly it says “God is greater than I am.” When we say that out loud it becomes God > I AM. Now, to me, that doesn’t make any sense. It should be “God ≡ I AM” which means God-is-the-identical-of I AM.
Now, this is more like it. At least it is in proper English. Here the meaning is clear: HE (God) Is greater than me. If we know that is the Truth, then we have a better start on understanding our relationship with God. Being able to understand it though is not quite the same as being able to accept it. If we cannot accept that “God is greater than me,” then we will not be able to commit to someone or something outside ourselves and greater than ourselves. Note the coordinating conjunction there. It is the word and. Both of those conditions are required to achieve that goal of Love. This is especially true if we give full rein (or reign!) to our pride. In that case, we end up with something like this:
This one says, “I am greater than all of you.” This is the living-attitude of a prideful person. We are less than the “Big I” and all of us are equally unimportant. We may know someone like that, some of us are someone like that, and all of us would rather avoid someone like that because they would rather avoid us. The “U” in this meme might also stand for “use.” For the prideful person we are in “their world” to be used. Period. That is not Love because there is nothing in it that is greater than one’s self even though everything and everyone is outside of one’s self.
In the Key Verse from the Book of Acts we learned, they spent much time together in the temple and broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. That is how it is done, day by day. I mentioned Twelve Step Programs previously, and one of the mottos we often hear in them is “One day at a time.” When we ask folks who are chronically ill or in constant physical, emotional, or even financial pain, “How are you today?” they will often respond with, ”Oh, you know, ‘One day at a time.’” Sometimes when we are burdened, “One day at a time” is all we can handle. Want to know why? Because one day at a time is all we get. Everything we have and are comes and goes One Day At A Time. (↔ Music Link) Since we know that “every good and perfect gift is from above” (i.e., greater than our selves and outside our selves), we usually can learn to Love God, Love ourselves, and even Love our neighbors One Day At A Time. (↔ Slightly Different Music Link)
Sometimes, though, even living with, in, and for the Love of the Lord won’t keep us out of the battle with evil. We may recall what The Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 6:12 (GNT) – 12 For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. Nonetheless, we know that through prayer and faith, “even though we do not see him now yet believe in him, we rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as we attain the goal of our faith, the salvation of our souls.” (see 1 Peter 1:8-9) Some days we might feel like we’re in the middle of our Key Verse from Psalm 118 –
13 I was fiercely attacked and was being defeated,
but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord makes me powerful and strong;
he has saved me.
These are the words of someone who has learned to trust in the Lord because he knows that the Lord loves him enough to protect him, and isn’t that what we do for the people we love, we protect them? Here’s another quote of another Key Verse which I will copy for you here:
Psalm 56:10-11 –
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I am not afraid.
What can a mere mortal do to me?
When my eyes read that verse, this is what my heart hears: “In God, whose Word I praise, in the Lord, whose Word I praise, in God I trust; I am not afraid.” That is Love, it is Trust of someone and something larger than one’s self and outside of one’s self. It is “fear of the Lord” which means we have deep reverence for The Lord. When we find someone we can Love and Trust like that, we find our hearts, and minds, and souls, and even our bodies are at Peace day by day, one day at a time. it was Jesus’ will to empower the Apostles with that sort of Trust and Love. When he appeared to them in the Cenacle, he said, “Peace be with you.” Then, After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. He revealed himself to them as they accepted his blessing of Peace. He reveals himself to us in the same way; when we say YES to his Peace,his Peace is our peace. And here is something else about that passage from the Gospel of John.
We watch a lot of those “true-crime” shows in our household. Often after the crime has been solved, the perpetrator has gone to trial and been convicted, the family members and/or friends of the victim will state, “I forgive them,” and sometimes “I can never forgive them.” Well, toward the end of that passage from the Gospel we read, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” That is cited as the Priestly Privilege of the sacramental forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation commonly called “Going To Confession.”
But the thought struck me that this might also be true on a personal level. If in my heart, and mind, and soul I forgive someone who has wronged me, shouldn’t that be the end of it – they are forgiven – at least by me? Is not that my role as a Kingdom Priest, Prophet, and King? It is true, the perpetrator will definitely have to face judgment by God and may our may not find forgiveness there, but if I sincerely forgive, then – if I am true to the Love I profess – that forgiveness should be lasting. And if I feel in my heart, and mind, and soul that I cannot, must not, or should not forgive someone – and still leave final judgment up to God – can that be the end of it? “Do not judge or else you yourself will be judged by the same judgment.”
Know and reverence God because God has called YOU to be his servant. What, then, is your reasonable service of worship? It is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) And to love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18) It is to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8 – AGAIN) If we DO THESE THINGS DAY BY DAY (← NOT a Music Link), and with each passing moment, // Strength we’ll find to meet our trials here. Trusting in our Father’s wise bestowment, we’ve no cause for worry or for fear. Day by day we are called to Love and serve the Lord, but even if we do not, day by day he continues to bless us.
God is SO good!
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
