Devotional Thought of the Day
17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (Mk 2:17 New Living Translation ).

10 Nothing is so effectual against the devil, the world, the flesh, and all evil thoughts as to occupy oneself with the Word of God, talk about it, and meditate on it. Psalm 1 calls those blessed who “meditate on God’s law day and night.”  (1) 

820    Don’t judge by the smallness of the beginnings. My attention was once drawn to the fact that there is no difference in size between seeds that produce annual plants and those that will grow into ageless trees.(2)

If I am writing about as a simple Christian, a simple pastor who seeks to guide people to Christ, the mission as well is a simple one.  Not my mission rather it is His.  Because it is His, it is ours.

Jesus didn’t come for the good people, the holy people who sit in church, righteous and perfect. He came for the people struggling with health, spiritual health, physical health, financial health, mental health.  He came for those who relationships aren’t healthy, those with broken marriages, broken families, whose work relationships suffer.

The people in church hopefully realize this! They are there because they recognize the brokenness, and the hope that comes from knowing Jesus, the One who can do something about the cause of the brokenness.  We call it sin, or disobeying God, failing to love Him, and failing to love those around us. That is the source of brokenness, this inability to love, that becomes a vicious circle, breaking us down more and more.

Bringing people to Him, is like bringing a friend who has been badly hurt to the emergency room.  We aren’t always sure of what to do, but if there is to be hope, it is found as God ministers to them.  We don’t do such because we have to, but because there is no other hope for their brokenness.  It is what Love causes to happen in our lives, as we respond to those who suffer the brokenness we are healing of ourselves.

Simple – bring broken people help, bring them Jesus to them so that they can know His love for them.  So He can enable them to love again, as deeply and fully as He does.

Luther, as He introduces the faith, notes the need to contemplate the word of God, because there we hear of His love, we learn to know it, to count on that love as the people of God have, calling out to Him.  The more we hear the promises, the more  realize that HIs love is beyond and scope we could ever measure, the more we hunger for it,  St. Josemaria notes that this work, this mission of bringing people to know the healing power of Christ’s love starts out small, with the simple things.  The cup of water, the sharing of a meal, the kind word, or the offer of a prayer. The kind of things that people who are healing of their own brokenness can do.

This is what the church does…working alongside the God, who came to us, as He calls all sinners to be healed.

May this work bring us great joy, even as we see our own healing assured as we see others heal.

(1)  Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (pp. 359–360). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.  Luther’s Preface to the Large Catechism

(2)  Escriva, Josemaria (2010-11-02). The Way (Kindle Locations 1883-1884). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.