Daily Devotional
Found by God
The same sin runs through these readings: men seize what is not theirs and call it strength. Ahab covets Naboth’s vineyard and buys it with blood. In Job, the wicked move landmarks, strip the poor, and make the helpless hide themselves. In Daniel, kingdoms trample, break, and profane the holy place. And the apostle answers not with speculation, but with a command: walk so as to please God, abstain from fornication, wrong no man, live quietly, labor honestly, and abound more and more.
Scripture does not let us divide lust from injustice. The hand that reaches for another man’s field is near of kin to the body that reaches for another man’s wife. Both despise limits set by God. Both say, in effect, that desire is lord. Therefore the warning is severe: “He that rejects, rejects not man, but God. 1 Thessalonians 4:8 So also here.” The commandment is not a human custom to be negotiated, but the will of God to be obeyed.
Yet when guilt is exposed, there remains a narrow door of mercy. Ahab, though wicked, humbled himself with fasting and grief. Tertullian says that he “rent his garment, put on sackcloth, and bade the elders of the priests, similarly habited, approach God through Isaiah — fasting being, of course, the escorting attendant of their prayers.” Let no one boast in a passing sorrow while keeping the vineyard in his hand; still, let no one despair of repentance when the prophet has found him out.
The church must not join the tramplers. She must keep herself holy, her hands clean from fraud, her body pure, her speech truthful, and her table open to the poor, awaiting the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead.
“He that rejects, rejects not man, but God. 1 Thessalonians 4:8 So also here.”
— John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians
“he rent his garment, put on sackcloth, and bade the elders of the priests, similarly habited, approach God through Isaiah — fasting being, of course, the escorting attendant of their prayers.”
— Tertullian, On Fasting
For Reflection & Discussion
What possession, payment, boundary, or advantage is not rightfully yours, and what will you restore or make right this week without delay?
How will you practice repentance concretely in the next two days—by fasting, confession, and prayer at set times—for some sin of lust, greed, or dishonest gain?
Whom have you neglected while seeking your own ease: a poor person, debtor, servant, widow, stranger, or brother, and what help will you give them in money, food, work, or hospitality?
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