Dear Faith Family,
In the most ordinary places—those daily settings, roles, relationships, and responsibilities through which we make a life good—is where our faith matures, bears fruit that lasts, and encounters its most significant opposition. At least that’s the story Jesus’ letter to the faith family of Thyatira tells (Rev. 2:18-29).
As we discussed Sunday, to the most “ordinary” city, a good but not overly significant city, to people whose opposition to faith was as mundane as their city was normal, Jesus wrote his most lengthy and magnificent letter.
Perhaps the ordinariness of their faith and faults required an extraordinary exhortation in order for them to recognize what was at stake, to see the significance of their daily work and the significant danger they were working with.
I wonder if we (me at least) are not unlike the Thyatiran Christians. If we, like they, are committed to living a life in love through faith, service, and hope in the ordinary places of life and yet are married to a vision of a good life (an image, idea, or means) that is a different mixture than Jesus’ foundation. An unfit union played out in our vocation, community, and faith that leaves us fragile. Oh, not a first. At first, it seems to strengthen and beautify the life we long for, but eventually, the union leads to a confrontation with the simplicity of the Way, Truth, and Life we received in Jesus. A vision that has us chasing deeper things rather than continuing to hold fast to the sufficiency and sureness of the heritage and work that has been given to us.
The work Jesus gives us (those ordinary means of making a life good, i.e., a “Kingdom” life) always squeeze us a bit, limiting our options but not to deprive, rather so that we might flourish in our union with Him (see another revelation of Jesus through John in John 15:1-11). Yet, the opposition we feel within, the anxiety of faith, conflict of calling, uncertainty if we are “doing it right” that at times marks all our daily labors, does not have its source in what we’ve received, but what vision we are married to.
There is a profound significance to the ordinary “royal” work (as we discussed Sunday) which we follow Jesus in, receiving from Him as our heritage to continue. Significance in both its transformative power and the opposition that it faces. An opposition that, if we are passive, ambivalent, or unaware, will divide us within ourselves and from our King. And yet, an opposition that, as we’ve learned in these letters, cannot stand in the light of Jesus’ revelation. So, will we conquer? Will we be attentive in our maturing, recognizing the visions (ideas, images, means) that draw our loyalty elsewhere? Will we actively resist and carry on in the simple, royal work we did at first: living within love through faith, service, and hope?
Those are the questions our final Letter of Lent encourages us to ask of Jesus in these last days of Lent’s journey. So let us, once more, open our hearts and lives to our good Father’s examination so that we might be known and shown the Way, Truth, and Life through the cross to an Easter eternity today. The guide below is meant to help us along the way.
Love you, faith family. God bless.
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THROUGH THE CROSS TO EASTER
PREPARATION:
Set aside ten to twenty minutes for this practice. Find a quiet spot and consider having a pen and journal to record your thoughts and conversation with our heavenly Father.
INSTRUCTION:
Read the following question three times, letting it sink into your consciousness. Pay attention to how it makes you feel (physically, emotionally, etc.) and what pictures, people, or practices pop into your mind. Don’t linger on them, just note them.
What vision (idea, image, means) of a good life am I married to,
“helping” me make a life (i.e., work)?
Now read Psalm 139:23-24a, pausing where instructed: