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Daily Devotional August 2 2021

Psalm 80; 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Acts 18:1-11; Mark 8:11-21
Jesus is on the verge of losing His temper. He has clearly lost all patience. ‘Why do you ask for a sign?’ ‘Why are you still talking about bread?’ ‘Do you not remember anything?’ When you don’t want to hear the truth, you won’t–not even if it’s screamed into your ears, not even if it’s paraded in front of your eyes. If you choose to believe that the earth is flat and supported on the back of a tottering tower of turtles, then no amount of explanation about gravity and planetary orbit patterns is ever going to change your mind. Because once you’ve closed yourself off to the truth, it won’t force itself into your soul. Jesus may stand outside and knock, but He won’t batter down your door and force Himself into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for you. And friends, there are a lot of people out there selling you lies these days, and yelling loudly as they do so that they’re the only ones brave enough to tell the truth.
There’s an obscure passage in Isaiah 5, ‘Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope: That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!’ It’s largely obscure because the imagery is so odd. Basically, it’s saying ‘woe to you who work twice as hard to be wicked then ever you’d have to in order to do good, who lug sin along as if it were precious cargo, who demand that God make everything clear as crystal, who twist the truth for your own purposes.’ Woe to those who call the truth a lie, and call lies the truth. Because they blind themselves and everyone who listens to them to what’s really happening in front of our eyes. Because they make Jesus sigh, and lose His patience, and maybe even His temper…
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Steven Wilson

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Grace Church is the oldest Episcopal parish in the four states area.
Rooted in worship of the Risen Christ, we draw our understanding of His commandment to love one another from Holy Scripture, reason and tradition—and we encourage our membership actively to seek a deeper personal relationship with Christ, a relationship founded in love of God and of neighbor.

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