Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – Romans 14:17-19 (day three)

“We pursue the things which make for peace.”

The way of life with others to which you have become accustomed requires the exertion of strength to assert your opinions, to defend your ideas, to guard your feelings, and to search for acceptance – all in order to secure a position as a valued member of a community or group or society. To the degree you’re not adept at exerting that strength, your status will suffer accordingly. Whereas in the world’s system a position of great value requires strength, the Holy Spirit teaches a kind of life in which a position of great value requires weakness – vulnerability, fallibility, failing, frailty, foible, infirmity. The Spirit makes it possible to care for one another in our weaknesses. This is peace: the laying down of weapons of judgment against one another. In such a community, you have nothing to prove.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:26-27 (day three)

“We do not know how to pray as we should.”

Perhaps the last thing you want to encounter is one more “should” in your life. How long is your list of “shoulds” already? Yeah. Same. This “should” is different, though. No, really. It isn’t announcing, “You’re doing it wrong.” Paul is simply saying that God is perfectly aware of how hard it is for you to speak of things that are painful to acknowledge even to yourself. It’s much easier to say, “Help me learn contentment” than to blurt out “I am grieving the loss of that dream I’ve had for so long.” It’s much easier to utter, “Help me know which way to go,” than to express, “Why have you left me here without any direction?” That’s why God’s Spirit groans. Each groan declares, “There’s more this soul must say.”

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:5-11 (day three)

“…life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

Later in Romans, Paul will say that one of the most spiritual things you can do is to move your body in ways that serve others and stand with them: a hand opening in generosity, an ear listening to stories of suffering, a voice lifting in solidarity with those who face oppression. The Lord said that if you want to find a person’s heart, follow the treasure. Paul relates a similar sentiment: If you want to take an honest look at what you’re devoted to, notice what you do with your body. The Holy Spirit is exhaling onto your body the ability to move like Jesus in the world.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:1-4 (day three)

“…that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us…”

The Pharisees’ use of the law as a tool for building a society was – well, just stop right there. The law is not a tool for anything. It is not something one uses. It is itself the mind of God in written form. The human person will be transformed by it, and when that occurs, no one will ever have to worry that such a person will become like the Pharisees. Such a person – and only such a person – will never die. That is what the law’s “requirement” is all about. Transformation is required for a person to live forever. The Holy Spirit came a-howling gale across the society that the Pharisees built. It leveled everything – except that which was transformed by the One who fulfilled the law.

Re:Verse passage – Acts 1:8 (day three)

“…to the remotest part of the earth.”
The Spirit that will empower a worldwide revelation has been drawing close to the world since the beginning. “Now the earth was formless and empty…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” As the accretion disk spun around the sun, as molten rock coalesced into a rocky sphere, as icy comets plunged into the young sky delivering water that gathered into seas, was the hovering Spirit contemplating that future time when the humans God made would see a new light and turn back to their Creator? The Spirit has been at this work a long, long time. He who moved across those ancient oceans will not stop until the earth “be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Re:Verse passage – John 1:29-34 (day three)

“I did not recognize Him.”

What’s the difference between John’s lack of recognition and the lack of recognition among the religious establishment? It’s this: John was watching for evidence of God’s activity, regardless of whether that activity contradicted his own criteria for how a Messiah ought to present. In fact, John’s inner conflict between his closely held messianic benchmarks on the one hand and the evidence of Holy Spirit activity on the other hand prompted a later crisis of faith in John. Does what you identify as God’s activity just happen to follow the standards that you already hold dear? The witness of the Bible seems to be that the Holy Spirit’s movement will offend and even upend your sensibilities. That which those most qualified to know claimed could not possibly be of God was in fact exactly the opposite.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 11:11-19 (day three) 

“He said to [the fig tree], ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again!’”

In an agrarian society, it was not remarkable for everyone to know it wasn’t fig season. So why did Jesus look for them anyway? Because he saw a tree in leaf – not in bud – and from a distance it looked like an unexpected find. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus was hungry. A false fig signal enticed him and then disappointed him. We might even describe his mood as “hangry.” While he was still stewing over the hollow promise made by a leafy tree, he walked into the temple and in a moment of cosmic déjà vu, realized that just as the tree had falsely promised figs, the temple falsely invited people into an encounter with God. God takes seriously the promises we make to people.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 1:1-8 (day three)

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Turns out that salvation, long the exclusive focus of evangelistic fervor, isn’t an end in itself. It’s crucial, but inaugural. The coming One will immerse all willing souls in God himself, active in the world. Immersion in a language – speaking it, singing it, writing it, conversing in it – will develop in you the habits of thinking which correspond to that language. When you live with God – speak to him, sing of him, think about him, develop a life with his people – you’ll develop the habits of being that emulate “God active in the world” – which is one way to think about the Holy Spirit. That baptism will lead you to an eternity of reigning with God – having say over resources and activity and initiatives that will lead to a continually flourishing life for humanity.