I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. —Philippians 3:12

Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you “turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has “laid hold of” us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, “Well, I’m really not suited for this.” What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God’s hand on you— your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?

Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are— you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do…I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Journal, DJR

Good Morning Lord,
We continue to look at two streams of devotional literature and compare the truths that are contained in each. It’s a process of sorting, and comparing and even rejecting some of what we find. The authors, after all are imperfect humans caught in the space and time of their own culture… just as we are. Sometimes, understanding the context that the author wrote in helps, just as it is essential to understand the context that the scriptural authors wrote. And sometimes you’ve shown us concepts that help bridge differences and answer seeming contradictions. The bolded quote above… “when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are— you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.” … depends on the “either – or” dualistic thinking context. Which we are coming to reject. To us, it really helps to see and state that both are true. We are special beings, created in heaven…. and also sinners saved by grace.

Another line that we see as true, but we see it differently is, Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. What Chambers and some of today’s polarized folks in politics as well as religion fail to include are the clear scriptures on Love and Grace and Mercy. We must not water those down either. When they are “preached with undiluted sternness” we have a delicious tension that only reliance on your Holy Spirit can resolve. Until he does, for us specifically, in a specific situation, it seems that the only safe way to stand is holding both of the seeming opposites in an “open palm”… ready to hear, ready to be instructed, ready to see thru a new lens. Help us Lord to live like that.

Field Hospital on the Edge of the Battlefield (Daily Devotional from Richard Rohr)
Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Francis of Assisi taught us the importance of living close to the poor, the marginalized, the outcasts in society. The outer poverty, injustice, and absurdity around us mirror our own inner poverty, injustice, and absurdity. The poor man or woman outside is an invitation to the poor man or woman inside. As you nurture compassion and sympathy for the brokenness of things, encounter the visible icon of the painful mystery in “the little ones,” build bridges between the inner and outer, learn to move between action and contemplation, then you’ll find compassion and sympathy for the brokenness within yourself.
Each time I was recovering from cancer, I had to sit with my own broken absurdity as I’ve done with others at the jail or hospital or sick bed. The suffering person’s poverty is visible and extraverted; mine is invisible and interior, but just as real. I think that’s why Jesus said we have to recognize Christ in the least of our brothers and sisters. It was for our redemption, our liberation, our healing—not just to “help” others and put a check on our spiritual resume.
I can’t hate the person on welfare when I realize I’m on God’s welfare. It all becomes one truth; the inner and the outer reflect one another. As compassion and sympathy flow out of us to any marginalized person for whatever reason, wounds are bandaged—both theirs and ours.
Thomas, the doubting apostle, wanted to figure things out in his head. He had done too much inner work, too much analyzing and explaining. He always needed more data before he could make a move. Then Jesus told Thomas he must put his finger inside the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side (John 20:27). Then and only then did Thomas begin to understand what faith is all about.
Pope Francis is encouraging a church of doubting Thomases when he tells us that “the church seems like a field hospital” [1] on the edge of the battlefield (as opposed to a country club of saved people) and the “clergy should smell like their sheep” (rather than thinking they smell better). [2] If this could happen, it would change just about everything that we have called church up to now.

Gateway to Silence:
Be still and still moving.

“…I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord. —Jeremiah 1:8

We…plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. —2 Corinthians 6:1

The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. “…in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses”— that is where our patience is tested (2 Corinthians 6:4). Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, “Oh well, I won’t count this time”? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you— it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don’t say, “I will endure this until I can get away and pray.” Pray now — draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God’s grace through prayer.

“…in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors…” (2 Corinthians 6:5)— in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.

“…having nothing….” Never hold anything in reserve. Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you. “…and yet possessing all things”— this is poverty triumphant (2 Corinthians 6:10).

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Journal DJR
Good morning Lord, I’ve been traveling for the last few weeks and have missed many days here with you and JD. I’m almost home and look forward to getting more regular in our times together. One thing that JD and I have discussed often and more regularly over the last year is our regular differences with the daily selection from Oswald Chambers. Usually the selection is a mixed bag…. some of it we agree with, some of it we take issue with, and see differently. It’s been good for us to think about what you are saying to us and what we really believe for ourselves. This year, we have also each day looked at Richard Rohr’s daily meditation. The juxtaposition of the two writers has been interesting and an exercise in “iron sharpening iron.” The last line in Chambers’ devotional today, for example, fits with Rohr’s Franciscan theology like a hand in a glove. Other points, not so much.

One of the things that we have been learning is not to polarize, but rather to look for truth in all perspectives and suspect that a “third path” will open up somewhere different than at the polarized ends of any spectrum. How great would it be if our politicians could learn this! In my travels, I met with some old friends who reminded me how we had worked together to free people from addiction by identifying and helping them dismantle one of the root causes…. “Imperative Thinking” This all or nothing, black and white, right or wrong, approach is what keeps addicts coming back to their addiction… as well as what keeps our politics so divisive. Over the years, Imperative Thinking is one of the things you have been removing from JD’s and my lives… and that’s still a work in process. Which brings me to today’s thinking on what to include in our CO2MannaToday output. Chambers ALWAYS has some nuggets of truth … but also, we are seeing so much Imperative Thinking, with “Guilt Hooks” and Sin Management, that I no longer want to put it out without comment or “counterpoint” Today, I’m including both devotionals. Perhaps that’s too much, too long. Or maybe our readers will enjoy seeing them both and joining us in the “iron sharpening iron” that we experience by daily comparing the voices… and finding our own that you are speaking to us.

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So here is today’s devotional from Richard Rohr. and here is a link which takes you to his site. The 8 minute introductory video is helpful. If you like it, feel free to sign up to have his daily devotionals come in your email. http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-kiudft-ulluljtiy-i/

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation Monday, June 26, 2017

The words action and contemplation have become classic Christian terminology for the two dancing polarities of our lives. Thomas Aquinas and many others stated that the highest form of spiritual maturity is not action or contemplation, but the ability to integrate the two into one life stance—to be service-oriented contemplatives or contemplative activists. By temperament we all tend to come at it from one side or the other.
This full integration doesn’t happen without a lot of mistakes and practice and prayer. And invariably, as you go through life, you swing on a pendulum back and forth between the two. During one period you may be more active or more contemplative than at another time.
I have commonly noticed a tendency to call any kind of inner work contemplation, and this concerns me. Inner work might lead you to a contemplative stance, but not necessarily. We shouldn’t confuse various kinds of inner work, insight-gathering, or introspection with contemplative spirituality. Contemplation is about letting go of the false much more than just collecting the new, the therapeutic, or the helpful. In other words, if you and your personal growth are still the focus, I do not think you are yet a contemplative—which demands that you shed yourself as the central reference point. Jesus said, “Unless the single grain of wheat dies, it remains just a single grain,” and it will not bear much fruit (John 12:24).
We must guard against our “innerness” becoming disguised narcissism, navel-gazing, and overly self-serving. I am afraid this is not uncommon in the religious world. An exalted self-image of “I am a spiritual person” is far too appealing to the ego. Thomas Merton warned against confusing an introverted personality with being a contemplative. They are two different things.
Having said that, I’ll point out the other side of the problem. Too much activism without enough inner work, insight, or examination of conscience inevitably leads to violence—to the self, to the project at hand, and invariably to others. If too much inner focus risks narcissism and individualism, I guess too much outer focus risks superficiality, negativity passing for love of justice, and various Messiah complexes. You can lack love on the Right and you can lack love on the Left—they just wear two different disguises.
We need both inner communion and outer service to be “Jesus” in the world! The job of religion is to help people act effectively and compassionately from an inner centeredness and connection with God.

Gateway to Silence:
Be still and still moving.

You are…a royal priesthood… —1 Peter 2:9

Journal DJR
Good morning Lord,
Today both or our writers mention “letting go” rather than holding on as the way to freedom and peace. You have taught us to be suspect of what we’ve called the Big Four… the need to Look good, Feel good, Be right, and Be in control. Rohr adds a view thru a slightly different lens… letting go of our need for power and control, safety and security, and affection and esteem. In meditation about letting go of all of this stuff, I’m seeing that none of those items are bad in themselves, being right, having safety or affection, etc. Rather it is the “need” for those thing and the striving for them to the extent that we become blind and deaf to the needs around us and what you are saying to us. So the challenge seems to be the de-coupling of the need and striving from those things. Being right, Feeling Good, Being in control and having security and esteem are not bad if they come to us, rather than being things that we strive after. How can that de-coupling happen? How do we work together with you to walk in those blessings without getting tangled up in chasing after them?

The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. —Job 42:10

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends….I have called you friends… —John 15:13, 15

Abide in Me… —John 15:4

In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus— I have to do it myself. I have to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). “Abide in Me”— in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.

Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord’s inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father’s plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord’s life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, “Yes, Lord, just a minute— I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then.” Get moving— begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.

Abide in Me… —John 15:4

…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22

They said to Him, “Rabbi…where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” —John 1:38-39