Stress Test Devotional April 27
April 27, 2024
Matthew 23:23 | 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
God’s commands can never be reduced to a “to do” list or “why?” Because they aim to fix the world’s evil, transform its children, and reflect the purity and goodness of His holy character. When our faith becomes manageable, limited, and over-specified into obligations we have forgotten this.
Jesus gives the perfect response—we must aim at justice and mercy and faith! These great aims cannot be reduced to simple obligations. They require a disruptive engagement with complex problems and broken people and they do not allow us to retreat into pious circles of conformity. In fact they draw us beyond ourselves entirely, and toward the redemptive work God is doing around us, which Jesus called “the Kingdom.”
Do you sense VPC is moving towards the world’s problems? Are we on an adventure of faith, mercy, and justice?
