Listen

God didn’t put the world that is coming (the world we are talking about) under the angels’ control. Instead, someone declared somewhere,

What is humanity that you think about them? Or what are the human beings that you care about them? For a while you made them lower than angels. You crowned the human beings with glory and honor. You put everything under their control.

When he puts everything under their control, he doesn’t leave anything out of control. But right now, we don’t see everything under their control yet. However, we do see the one who was made lower in order than the angels for a little while—it’s Jesus! He’s the one who is now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of his death. He suffered death so that he could taste death for everyone through God’s grace.

Hebrews 2:5-9

Think

My parents have a universal remote control. Want to listen to music? Push this button. Want to watch soccer? Push that button. Yet it often actually picks the opposite of what you choose or just gets stuck! It asks on screen, “Do you want guided help?” I wouldn’t need guided help if it could just control things right the first time!

Thankfully we have more effective guided help in our lives! Jesus has gone before us and welcomes all of us to follow. As we live, we learn we cannot universally control our world as much as we might want to, or we fail to do so well. And when we make wrong choices or when we get stuck, God is there offering guided help. We need it!

How to care for the world? How to seek justice for all peoples? How to ask for forgiveness? How to offer forgiveness? God is not remote. God as creator, redeemer, and sustainer universally guides us as we seek to live that grace together as members of the family of God.

Molly Logan

Pray

Loving God, be with me as I want to be in control. Help me to look to you for guidance for the changes I can make in my world, the love I can grow, the hope I can create. Help me to look to you for guidance for acknowledging my limits and my arrogance too. Thank you for your guided help, close to my heart, never remote. Amen.

Go

This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.

Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other.

1 John 4:10-11

As a beloved member of the family of God, choose to be that love to our world today.