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The intent of Pilgrim Processing is to provide commentary on the Daily Lectionary from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The format for the comment is Old Testament Lesson first, Gospel, and Epistle with a portion of one of the Psalms for the day as a prayer at the end.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

2 February 2013




Do we believe in a supernatural God?  The word means, quite literally, that which is above or beyond (super) natural.  He calls to His people to believe that very thing.  They can only see the present and the limited possibilities for change that exist in the natural.  They know what they can do and accomplish and their possibilities are limited to what they can imagine or accomplish on their own.  He points back to Abraham and Sarai to say that without supernatural intervention they could never have had children and the nation wouldn't even exist.  The Lord points out that all their doubts and fears relate to the boundaries imposed naturally but He is above all that, possibilities exist for Him that we could never imagine.  It is a good day to get a God-sized vision.

In the Nicene Creed we speak of things seen and unseen.  We are, at heart, materialists, we gauge and measure what we see.  The measure of sin is the heart, that which is unseen unless we choose to make it visible by our words and deeds.  Those things are simply a measure of what is going on in our hearts.  They aren't always accurate indicators because we learn early on to hide the really bad stuff, not allow it to be seen.  Jesus says that too often we concern ourselves with the externals when it is the internal, unseen things that tell the truth.  The heart is wicked and who knows its ways and so where is the solution to such a problem?  The solution is the power of the Holy Spirit, what Jeremiah saw, a new heart, a heart of flesh not of stone, the writing of the commandments on that heart.  It is a supernatural problem with a supernatural solution.

The problem of mankind is supernatural, the sin nature.  The solution God provides is, likewise, supernatural, it overcomes our nature, it is faith.  The writer of Hebrews gives us a fantastic definition of faith in the 11th chapter of that epistle, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  It is believing in a supernatural God for those things promised that are not seen by us.  We have been justified by that very faith in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.  We have eternal life.  It doesn't seem like it at the moment as we struggle through this life but we are already participating through the Holy Spirit in the divine life and victory.  Faith conquers all and gives us hope in our lives that there is a city prepared for us, our true home.  It allows us to risk everything for the sake of what we do not now see but only because we believe in a God for whom all things are possible, even things we cannot imagine.

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