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Help support the vision of Woodland Hills Community Church!
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Monday, October 20

Today’s Readings: Psalm 143; Numbers 16:1-19; Matthew 5:1-10; Ephesians 5:1-15; Psalm 124

In my 41 years, I’ve lived through a lot of things. When I was a child I lived through Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War. When I was a teen ager I lived through the onset of the HIV/AIDS Crisis and the Iran Contra Scandals. When I was in my twenties I lived through the Black Monday (Stock Market Crash of 1987) and the Iran-Contra scandals. In my thirties I lived through the impeachment hearings for a President and the terrorist attacks on New York, Pennsylvania & Washington, DC. In other words, I’ve seen some tough times. All of these times pale in comparison to the feelings of malaise that have overtaken us these days. The combination of many factors has taken a huge toll on peoples’ psyches these days. It’s against such a backdrop that today’s message from Ephesians comes – and some of the words are down right shocking in terms of their challenge to us. The most startling piece comes at the end of Ephesians 5:4 where Paul tells us that as people of faith “thanksgiving [ought to be] our dialect” (from The Message). In the context of the larger passage, Paul is calling his audience to move from the language of gossip toward the language of thanksgiving. In other words, he tells his audience to move from the negative to the positive. Today, our biggest challenge is perhaps slightly different. While the negative practice of gossip still remains a challenge for some of us, the larger challenge these days is to be sucked into a spirit of fear and hopelessness. Instead of choosing those things, Paul would point us in another direction: back toward a place of thanksgiving and gratitude. So how do we do that? How do we make this seemingly impossible shift in our focus from one of fear and hopelessness to one of thanksgiving? Well, the answer is hidden within the second question: we shift our focus. Instead of focusing on the things we either don’t have, or are in fear of losing; we can focus on those things we have that are permanent (i.e. God’s grace & love). Instead of focusing on the things that scare us, we can focus on those things that bring us hope. If - during these days of overwhelming fear and uncertainty - we can follow Paul’s advice and pick up thanksgiving as our dialect, we just might be surprised at how quickly the things around us will begin to change. The truth will be, however, that it’s not the world that will change; instead, it will be our perception of the world that will change. Til next time…

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