In the fall of 2018, I heard a voice calling me to create a devotional that connects God’s children closer to God, closer to each other, and closer to the saints and sinners who make up the Bible. I heard it in the midst of a season when leaders who call themselves Christian were distancing us from God, from each other, and from those same stories that teach us who we are in the world. I hope these devotions offer comfort, encouragement, and deepening connections to God’s earth and God’s many and diverse children, so that we may be a people building God’s Beloved Community together. You’ll find a devotional here every Wednesday in 2019, and in other places I posted about below.* The devotions are written as if from God, and I hope I did not fail in my effort to honor both God and you in the process.
–Sandhya Jha
3 John 1:3-4 I was overjoyed when some of the friends* arrived and testified to your faithfulness to the truth, namely, how you walk in the truth. 4I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
If an apostle’s friends had been witness to your community life, what would they report back to the apostle? Or if they were witness to your personal life, what would their word be? The apostle who wrote this letter wrote to a man named Gaius to get him and his community ready for the visit of a beloved apostle named Demetrius, and the author was relieved to find that Demetrius would be working with good and open people. Today I invite you to ask how you and your community are readying yourself for the apostles I send to you to strengthen you. How are you practicing hospitality, and transparency, and visible faithfulness to me and my message of love? How can you support each other in those practices?
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*You can find us Tuesdays on Twitter, Wednesdays here, Thursdays on Instagram, Fridays on Facebook, and if you sign up here, you’ll get a devotion in your inbox every Sunday!
Sandhya Rani Jha 