Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“I know your works; you have a name for being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is at the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard; obey it, and repent.”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, August 1, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Honesty matters. Self-honesty most of all. It’s not enough as a church community or as an individual to present oneself as spiritually actualized or living out one’s faith—we actually have to be fully aware of our motives and our failings. So many of us fall into complacency about our faith. We go through the motions. We show up on a Sunday morning and when we leave the building we completely forget about God, the call to love and to serve and to help facilitate the inbreaking of God’s reign into our deeply, deeply hurting world. We make ourselves too busy to stay deeply connected to the Spirit, to be inspired to follow in the Way of Jesus.
Unlike this dire calling-out in Revelation, I think God actually gets it. And God is waiting patiently for us to recognize where deadness has crept into our faith and our religious practice and our lives. And the Holy Spirit can utterly transform this rut, filling us with inspiration and motivation, calling us to be alive in so many ways. We need to “remember then what [we] have received and heard” and be ready to follow.
Where is my faith in need of new life?
