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Daily Devotional for December 15

 

December 15                                             Matthew 23:27-39


Jesus really knows human nature! How easy it is to read the
old prophets' harangues about others and smile and nod know-
ingly as we apply their words to the past. How much harder
it is to read the ancient prophets and apply their words of
prophecy to our lives today! How much harder it is, indeed,
to hear the voice of the prophet in our own time, pointing
out and condemning our own faults.


Yet prophets are not solely for one time and for no other. The
Biblical prophets have much to teach us about how we can
live meaningful lives today. For example, the prophet Isaiah
still speaks to us today when he describes the kind of fast that
is preferable to God, the kind that calls us "to loose the bonds
of wickedness,... to share your bread with the hungry, and
to bring the homeless poor into your house... ." (Isaiah
58:6-7)


God also sends prophets to us today. Sometimes they are like
the great, loud, thumping prophets of old - people who relish
the gift of prophecy and boom it out to our discomfort. But
often they are ordinary people, like you and me, who will on
occasion quietly speak a word of truth about our world and
our life. Prophecy is essentially the gift of speaking forth God's
truth about a given situation.


It is hard to listen to prophets because they call attention to
the things in our lives that need to be changed. They call us
out of our complacency into the risks of trust in God as the
source of our security. To heed their call is to admit that we
are still sinners in need of God's grace.


        Great Inspirer of the Prophets, I humbly ask that
    you help me to hear the prophets which you send into
                              my life today. Amen.

From The Road to Emmaus - An inclusive devotional Edited by Joseph W. Houle

Emmaus House of Prayer - Washington D.C.

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