Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
THURSDAY, January 28 (Thomas Aquinas)
John 5:30-47. I can do nothing on my own.
How very much we want to do things on our own! How certain we are that we know what is right, and that when things go well, it is to our own credit, sometimes to our own glory.
But there is nothing we can do on our own. We are God's. We were created by God simply because God loved us into being. We do not belong to ourselves – we belong to the one who created us in love to live in love. Our very being is the result of an incredible love affair started by God and into which we are invited.
Everything we do, everything we are, is the result of that love affair, that offering of love with the invitation to participate in it and respond to it.
Our lives are not about doing things on our own, about accomplishing more than the next person, about our fame and our fortune. Our lives are about love – God's love for us and, God hopes, our love for God. We can do nothing on our own because this is a love affair, and love affairs always take two participants, giving and receiving and giving again.
God is love, and you are his object. You are created to be his love and he is yours.
--Thomas Traherne
PRAY for the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles (Scotland)
Ps 50 [59, 60] or 118; Genesis 16:15-17:14; Hebrews 10:1-10
View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.
A Meditation for Pentecost
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