So I had another communion devotion to do. My idea came from a sermon that I heard this summer. I discussed the idea with my dad and he came up with part of it. The paragraph in italics is written by him.
As children, we make plans of what we want to do when we are older. As highschoolers, we plan on where we want to go to college or what career path we want to choose. As adults, we continue making plans about career changes, trips, family, where we will use our money. Some of us plan out our days to the last detail. Maybe we need to take a look at our plans again. Is something missing? For many of us, we have planned a day, sometimes a life without any thought of God being involved. And isn’t it easy to accept compliments on a life lived well and isn’t it easy to blame God for the things that don’t go as planned?
Just a few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Burlington Christian Church in Burlington, KS. I was there with my family, aunts, uncles, and cousins, celebrating my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. That Sunday, the preacher preached on what he called the sin of presumption, taken from James 4:13-17. “Now listen, you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
How many of us actually live out our daily lives in reference to what God’s will is? How many of us make plans and include any thought of what God would want us to plan? These verses say that not considering God in our plans is a sin. It is a sin of presumption.
The sin of presumption is that we order our lives without reference to Jesus. Jesus died for us so that we might live for Him. This Lord’s supper that we take reminds us of our responsibility to live for Jesus and to include Him in all of our plans and all of our lives. To do otherwise is the sin of presumption. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
Lets’s pray,
Dearest Heavenly Father,
It is so easy to boast and brag about our lives, as if we were wholly responsible for the blessings we were given from the work that we did. Father, remind us, that we are a mist, we have no idea how long we are here on earth for. Help us use our times here, wisely, always in reference to Your Will. Today as we take this communion, remind us that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for Your Son Jesus, who died for all and was raised again.
In Jesus Name, Amen
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