Devotional Guide

For the week of September 19, 2004



LET'S NOT RETREAT



How culture is a scaffold




To Read: Psalms 82-84



To Know:


"Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who
loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know

for God is love." (1 John 4:7,8)

Thinking my way around the neighborhood in which I grew up, it is

to visualize the people who lived near us in the 1950's. In my mind's eye

see Mr. and Mrs. Gallant, Mrs. Hills and her grown sons, Mr. and Mrs.

and others. The reason the image of these folk is clear after half a

is because I saw them nearly every evening. Many homes had a front porch

piazza and our neighbors' nightly routine was to sit on the porch and

passersby while keeping an eye on the children playing up and down the
street. Symbolic of how Americans have changed is the fact that families
have moved from the front porch to the back deck. Anonymity now marks our
way of life. Why? Is it the pace of living and the stress it creates that
has caused us to separate from each other?



To Do:


Christians are vital in a world coming apart. At the end, the church
and now the culture will be left standing. Culture is to the church of

Christ what scaffolding is to a building in progress. When the building is
complete the scaffolding comes down. Someday all cultures will collapse

the church will fill the earth. While it is today believers who belong to
the brotherhood of Christ live in the neighborhood of man. We are

to love both. How can we love those whom we never meet because we live our
life hiding out behind the house? Obviously, this is symbolic.

it is significant that Americans have left their front porches and

to the backyard deck. It is certainly a challenge to those of us who

to love our neighbor to find a way to share the good news of God's grace

the present time.



To Ask:


Father, help us to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of the love
of God abroad in the world.







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