'Singular Devotion'

everything he had to attain it. They left families, homes, and kingdoms where they were respected to humble themselves in another Kingdom. They left their many idols which offered comfort and security to bow before a new God, a singular and jealous God. 

Somehow these pagan sages understood the nature of God’s call to singular devotion. They came to Bethlehem with great wealth. When they humbly emptied themselves for the New Born King, they found the Kingdom of God welling up within them as if it were pressed down, shaken up and running over into their laps. They quenched their thirst with living waters. The dusty idols of the old countries held no more appeal. The scriptures tell us that the Magi went back a different way than they had come. How could they go back the same way now that they were different men?

‘Journey of the Magi’ by T. S. Elliott

 ‘…All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This; were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and do not doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.’

May you and I know the joy of such singular devotion as we seek Christ this year. 

 Blessings in 2023,

Jonathan