«Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world»
(Philippians 2: 14, 15).
NOT LONG AGO, I READ ABOUT THE CAUSES that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. I really thought I was reading today’s newspaper. According to Edward Gibbon, in his monumental work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the five most important factors were the collapse of the family institution; loss of the sense of individual responsibility; an increase in excessive tax and government control; the excessive pursuit of hedonistic, violent, and immoral pleasures; and the decline of religion.
How interesting! The most powerful empire in the ancient world fell, not by the power of invading armies, but by the loss of its moral and religious values. What a challenge for us today! How will we raise our children in a culture like ours which calls evil good, and calls good evil?
God is looking today for men and women who «have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.» Men and women who dare to come out of the wave of attacks that threatens to destroy our families. The question is how we are going to do it.
We will do it by traveling against the current, not with it. Dr. William J. Doherty illustrated this very well through the analogy of the Mississippi River. Dr. Doherty said that if you sit in a canoe somewhere in the upper Mississippi course—for example in Saint Paul, Minnesota—and do nothing to remain at that place, you will gradually travel south until you finally reach New Orleans. «If you want to move north, or even stay in Saint Paul,» Doherty wrote, «you have to row hard and have a plan.»
What a graphic way to illustrate a great truth! To form a home today without «rowing hard» and without a plan simply amounts to «traveling south»; that is, toward the loss of values and meaning.
And what does «rowing hard» mean? It means that we will fight so that nothing prevents us from giving God the central place in our homes. It also means that we will build a wall that keeps out of our homes the values of a secular society that wants to sell us the idea that happiness without God is possible. It means, as today’s text says, that we will dare to shine «as lights in the world» in the midst of a twisted and depraved generation.
Dear Lord, I want to be one of those lights that shine for You today, starting in my own home.
#AdultsDevotional
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2022
“GREAT IS OUR GOD!”
From: FERNANDO ZABALA
Collaborators: Xiomara Perdomo & Angelica Cuate
