Let Me Check My Calendar

Daily Reading:  Mark 11

And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. (Mark 11.11)

Devotional Thought:  When I was in pastoral ministry, my family's calendar was organized around the church's calendar.  We didn't resent it.  It was just a fact of life.  It actually simplified everything else, for there were some things that were "automatically" filled in on the calendar.  I was mildly amused one time when a friend suggested that everyone in the church should have a copy of the church's calendar so that they could plan their activities around what is happening in the church.  ("What a novel concept!" I thought to myself, "organizing your life around the life of the church."  I didn't say it, by the way!)

Three times in Mark 11 we read that Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem.   Jesus was in Jerusalem that year for a very important reason - the cross.   But every year, Jesus was in Jerusalem because the Lord had commanded, “Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God” (Exodus 34.23).  It didn’t matter what else was on the schedule; everybody had to be there.  Yes, that year Jesus was there for the cross, but he was also there because that was what he did.  His calendar was organized around the worship of the church.

I'm afraid, however, that we treat worship like any other activity: we choose whether we will participate based on our calendars.  Check your calendar.  Does it include worship?  Is your calendar planned around the life of your church?  I’m concerned that many of us plan our own activities and then worship if we have time. 

"I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord!'" (Psalm 122.1).

Prayer: O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  So, I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.  Amen.  (Psalm 63.1-2)

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 7.6-13

6 Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.

7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high.

8 The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.

9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous—you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!

10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.

11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow;

13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.