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.
WEDNESDAY, January 19 (Wulfstan)
Ephesians 5:1-14. Live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
When people meet you, God longs for them also to meet Christ. It sounds like a very high expectation, and quite beyond us, beyond even our best imaginings on our best days. Nevertheless, it is what God longs to see happen.
God longs for us to live so that in us others will recognize and be touched by the love of Christ. When the writer of the letter to the Ephesians tells his readers to “live in love,” he is really talking about that divine hope. To live in love is to be an advertisement for God. To act with decisive selflessness, even in a small way, is to reflect nothing less than the brilliant reality of the God who meets us in Christ.
Every step you take in love represents the purposes of God. It may be a small step—a minor kindness, a tiny sacrifice, a spontaneous act of mercy—but every step walked in love is evidence of the presence of God in the world. Moreover, it is a step along the road toward your truest self, the self made in the image of Christ, the self God made and means for you to be. (1996)
PRAY for the Diocese of Lokoja (Province of Abuja, Nigeria)
Ps 38 * 119:25-48; Isaiah 44:24—45:7; Mark 4:1-20
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A Meditation for Pentecost
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