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Weekly Devotional

November 16, 2009

God’s Peace be with you all.

Romans 12:1-5  I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.  ³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.  ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,  ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

Yesterday afternoon I attended the upstate conference meeting at Grace Lutheran in Rock Hill.  We talked about what God is up to in South Carolina, and how that mission may be different than it was just a few years ago.  This meeting, like all the other conference meetings throughout the synod, has given the synod office and staff a chance to listen to what the congregations and individuals of the synod are discerning as God’s call to them.

During this meeting, I had a conversation with a fellow pastor about our perception of the words “discerning” and “calling”.  As the church, we often think of these words only in the midst of pastoral change within the congregation.  The pastor that is interviewing has been discerning where God has been calling that person, and the congregation is also discerning the type of leader that God is calling to be their pastor.  The congregation then issues the “call” and the pastor then accepts the “call”, but only after a process of “discernment” on both sides.

Now what would the church be like if we were in a constant mode of “discerning our calling?”  What if we constantly evaluated what God is calling us to do in the world?  Perhaps that would mean changing jobs, moving, getting involved with different things in the community, etc.  If God’s call is one that is constant and perhaps changing as we move through our lives, then what does it look like to go away from our norm and into something new?  As Paul said: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”  As we approach the end of 2009, I know that many of you will be looking to do the ever present New Year’s Resolution.  Perhaps a good one to be thinking about is how you will better discern God’s call for your life, what it means, and how it impacts those around you.

In our prayers this week: 

Doris, Mary Netta, Ann, Joseph, Lisa, Kim, Robert (moving to a room this afternoon), Evelyn, Sharon, Michael (coming home from Iraq Thursday!!), Carol, and St. John’s Lutheran Church.

Pastor Judson