Christian Reflection and Prayer

Verse

Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his
neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them
their wages.
Jeremiah 22:13

Voice

A revolution which aims merely at changing official
policies and institutions with a view to an improvement
in material conditions has little chance of genuine
success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces
which produced the iniquities of the old order would
continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to
the process of reform and regeneration.
Aung San Suu Kyi

Prayer

Lord, remind us that we are resident aliens, called to
be in the world but not of it. Show us today what it
means to live as though your kingdom has come,
while trusting that it is still coming. Amen.

- Common Prayer

Proverbs 3:12, “the LORD disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.”

So many people fall into the spiritual pitfall of thinking
that God is mad at them and that the relationship is
permanently damaged. In these cases, we distance
ourselves from God and not the other way around.
While God may hold us accountable, and even punish
us at times, God always loves us and is always close
to us. In fact, God especially loves those that He holds
accountable. As we read in Proverbs 3:12, “the LORD
disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he
delights in.”

Don’t think even for a moment think that God has
abandoned you because of your sin. God is with us, loving us, and
ready to cleanse us; it’s up to us to turn to Him. He’s
there waiting.

With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein

God delights in those who honor him

Known in advance

God knew his people in advance, and he chose them
to become like his Son.
Romans 8:29 NLT

The Reforming Monk

Girolamo Savonarola was born in 1452 in Ferrara, Italy.
He was a sensitive and serious boy who was enamored
with the study of religion. He started training as a
physician, but his idealism caused him to drop out and
join a Dominican order to fight the evils of the world.

Savonarola was deeply distressed by the corruption
within the Catholic Church and what he saw as a lack
of piety among its leaders. He spent his time praying,
fasting, and teaching the novice monks. He became
famous as a preacher. He preached about God's
pending judgment, the need for repentance, against the
worldliness of the clergy, the evils of the ruling class,
and the general corruption of secular living.

Savonarola used his power and popularity to bring about
reform of church and state. He is considered an early
reformer within the Catholic Church. Under his leadership
Florence underwent a startling transformation:
businessmen restored ill-gotten gains, there was much
Bible ready, and the churches were crowded. At the
same time, Savonarola made many enemies.

With the passage of time, community support for
Savonarola's strict views started to wane. On
May 13, 1497, Alexander VI excommunicated Savonarola
from the church on the grounds that he had disobeyed
the pope's commands. He was arrested in April 1498,
tried for sedition and heresy and was brutally tortured.
On May 23, 1498, he was publicly hanged and his body
burned.

In the succeeding years the majority of citizens of
Florence went back to their old ways, yet many
permanently changed. One of those was a sculptor
named Michelangelo.

Adapted from The One Year® Book of Christian History
by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten (Tyndale, 2003),
entry for May 13.