Friday - 3 September, 2004

This week's Devotions are written by Vicar Steve Bond.



More from Hauerwas’ “Only Theology Overcomes Ethics”…



All are created to live by God’s good commands. Yet God has called the church to participate in his life, so that our justification is “a mode of deification.” We share with God a history through which we become acquainted.



Our identity as the church, as the people of God, is never a claim of sole possession of the Truth. Yet even though we do not possess exhaustive truth, we do lay claim to true truth. Or better still, the Truth has truly claimed us. And so as we witness t to the world, live in the midst of the world, and share God’s love for the world, we live out God’s purposes for us and have fellowship with God. Lutherans tend to be suspicious of deification talk—that we somehow take on divinity—and perhaps with good reason. But we can faithfully say that, as the body of Christ, we are graciously drawn into the very life of God and into the story of God and humanity, and we are made to be the hands and feed of Christ for the world.



Connection: The God who has claimed us doesn’t just label us as “saved” and then leave us where we are. God’s claim on us invites us, draws us, into the very life of God. That means that nothing in the course of this day is mundane or merely routine—everything is an opportunity to live out God’s gracious will for us and to delve deeper into relationship with God.



Lord, breathe new purpose and life into us this day, even as you have first breathed your Spirit into us.



Romans 8:15-16—“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”