Devotions from the Eastern Cape

13/08/2025

8 August, 2025
Devotions
2 Samuel12: 1 – 14
Psalms 9
Acts 19: 21 – 41

For some time now our Sunday collects have largely replaced the Prayer Book conventional ones.

‘Generous God you give us all things in abundance, help us to hold lightly the fading things of this earth so that we may grasp tightly the lasting things of your kingdom.’

We discern between fading and lasting things easily enough, sometimes only after serious errors of judgement on our part. Lust from King David for Bathsheba, with the murder of her husband Uriah is seen by God who uses Nathan the prophet to confront the king with his sinfulness. Hopefully he learned and matured in the process.

Acts19 records that ’About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way’ mostly to do with the clash of ideas in society regarding the presence of the Christian way of thinking resulting in rioting, eventually calmed by the Town Clerk. When our Lord described himself as the Way to God it made an immediate impression which stuck because it met a deep need in the hearers.

So with us, too. Since in Christ we are the way to God both for ourselves and others, let us continue to give honour and glory to the Lord. Amen. Jd.

16/06/2025

13 June, 2025
Devotions
Psalm 15

The power of choice is another gift from God to you, personally.
Today we have the gift of choice; being Friday what lies ahead?

Are you full up with activities or will your day be very different as you lay aside business to focus deliberately on being quiet as you wait upon the Lord and his will for you?

The other day I was remembering how I was saved from a life of crime (so to speak) when as a very young boy just having begun school (Sub A?) in Mossel Bay I wandered into our empty classroom during break and removed two big, round pennies from two desks.

On arriving home with my treasures my Mother went beserk and hawled a tearful lad to the class teacher to make my
confession.

That incident will never be forgotten, and helped to shape my life with regard to choice.

When as an archdeacon in the Free State I had to confront the person responsible for banking the Sunday collection (always ‘short’) and building his chicken run, I knew what I had to do!

Psalm 15 verse 2 calls on the believer to be blameless in his walk, doing what is righteous, speaking the truth from his heart. The godly standard having been set then and before in the Commandments we are now part of a society which accepts partners and turns a blind eye to teenage pregnancies, protecting the male culprits including teachers.

We elect counsellors and members of parliament to positions of responsibility and are reluctant to hold them responsible for wrong choices made. Will the tide ever turn to favour godly standards?
jd.

12/06/2025

6 June, 2025
Devotions
Psalm 145
Ezekiel 34|: 17-31
Hebrews 8: 1-13

We all do it – begin again when we fail but want to succeed. Good thing because our attitude of
mind is another reflection of God’s attitude to us, which is DON’T GIVE UP! EVER!

Something fresh and new – ‘I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be
their God, and they will be my people.’ Our generous, divine Creator who knows and loves us
intimately has already entrusted to us the gift of Eternal Life in and through Jesus his co-eternal Son.

Our 1989 S.A. Prayer Book spells it out for us in the Collect for Peace (page 51) ‘o God, the author of
peace and lover of concord to know you is eternal life, to serve you is perfect freedom,’ leaving us to
work it out as we live moment by moment, for eternal life is not primarily length of days but rather
quality of life in Christ with power from on high in the Holy Spirit. Length of days is part of the gift
entrusted to us (Hebrews 8:10b).

Eternal life can be discerned easily enough. The relationship with Our Lord who makes the Father
known to us through the Holy Spirit is seen in the nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy
peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Praise is the language of heaven where God’s gift of eternal life is most truly experienced. No harm
in having a little practice now and again!
jd

31/05/2025

May 30th 2025
Devotions
Psalm 119: 153 – 176
Ezekiel 1:28 – 33
Hebrews 4:14 – 5:6

Yesterday was Ascension Day, where the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven. I am sure the Lord has a plan for us individually on a daily basis too.

The psalmist is erratic in his response to God but knows that he the lost sheep, will be followed up and found eventually, thanks to the ongoing caring of the Good Shepherd.

In the small hours of last Tuesday morning, I heard distant thunder. Sometimes God speaks to us in the thunder. This was menacing. I was asked to intercede for the people of Gaza and Israel – a heavy task for the day. The Church is not vague about what happened next to Jesus after His ascension Hebrews 7:24 “Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood, therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them.”

Could it be like this; I once attended a regular meeting held by a farmer in the Eastern Cape, I was so impressed as the farmer gave his instructions to individual staff. He ended with a prayer for them all and sent them on their way. Does our Lord act similarly in an unseen, spiritual, global communication network?

The task of being High Priest appointed by God sets Jesus up as our intercessor (Hebrews passage). When our High Priest asks us to do something difficult (Ezekiel) we may be sure He will encourage us by His divine presence and the faith He gives us to get it done. What may seem impossible to us is possible for God to do through us.

Let us then continue to try and hear our High Priest speaking so that his kingdom and reign may be planted, take root and flourish: with or without the accompanying distant thunder.

jd

16/05/2025

16 May,2025
Psalm 102
Wisdom 6 12-23
Colossians 3: 1-11
Devotions

In our on-going relationship with our Lord, we are conscious of ups and downs.

For the person of faith there is knowledge that God is aware of our frustrations, verse 23b “turn your ear to me when I call, answer me quickly”.

The need for professional care from God is made clear from the need of hospitals and the many medical specialists of our day, when they are available! When the sufferer has the faith to know that God is to be worshipped and praised, he remains objective over all, even when God has cut short his days. Nevertheless the Eternal One is in control. Verse 27 “You remain and your years will never end.”

The Wisdom of Solomon (the Apocrypha) reminds us that it is the Lord who gives us wisdom which he has given St Paul in abundance, chiefly reminding us that in our Colossians text we have been raised and that by his very own initiative, our own thinking needs to be continually radical, going to the root of things; we have died and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ eventually appears we shall appear with him in glory!!

This will not be easy, but most possible, as by God’s grace we put to death what God expects from us. He spells it out for us in the text; “Christ is to be all and in all”.

Having called us to heavenly perfection (“you must be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect”) we are reminded that our days now are limited and short; to disbelieve or disregard this is foolishness on our part.

If indeed we are in communication with the living Lord, let’s live with that end in mind. Which is in fact another dynamic beginning. jd

14/05/2025

9 May,2025
Psalms 81, 82
Daniel 6: 1-15
2 John 1 – 13
Devotions

I was present at a meeting the other day where someone asked me, ‘What makes you tick?’ – (what
motivates you?). I was at a loss for words, not having asked myself that question ever before, and
I’ve been asking myself that question ever since!
What motivated Jesus? As a twelve year old boy our Lord already knew his answer, ‘I must be about
my Father’s business’ which becomes even clearer as we read the gospels and St.John, with the text
of the prophet Isaiah 61: ‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me , because the Lord has anointed
me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim
freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners and to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favour.’
We are all motivated differently; broadly speaking into two groups – those who believe in God (see
the three text-headings above) and those who don’t. This latter group follow whatever takes their
fancy and the believers refer to God to guide them in their lives of faith.
The question being asked on a Friday morning, therefore, is an important one. jd

12/12/2024

2 December, 2024
Devotions : Psalm 1
(The Quiet Path :
Contemplative Practices for Daily Life
By Andrew Rudd: Canterbury Press 2024)

The quiet path of reading
Before we write, we read. We live in a deluge of words, where we try to keep up, but miss so much.
Reading and writing are both acts of attention, and so they too can become spiritual practice, ways
of contemplation, quiet paths.
We can use Lectio Divina, the old monastic practice of divine reading, to subvert our need for speed
and demand for information+. In this practice, you hold a page before you and start to read slowly
and deliberately. Or, you listen to someone else read it. You listen for living communication,
something on this page that seems to be addressed to you personally.
Lectio feels like walking slowly, along a quiet path, paying attention as you go.
Lectio Divina began as a way of reading holy books, but other texts – sacred or secular - may be just
as fruitful. It’s a powerful way to read a poem.
In Lectio we stop studying, scrutinizing, digesting, interpreting, decoding. Instead we let the text
invite us to listen. Sometimes as we listen it can seem as if someone turns their face towards us and
speaks our name.
We listen deeply to recognize a voice. We listen for that phrase or single word that has energy and
life. And when we find it, we don’t rush to interpretation, but just repeat it, allowing it to sink deeply
into our consciousness. The word will develop and deepen until it becomes encounter. By this we
know.
On this quiet path we sense a presence, as if behind and before the text someone is standing. The
Word we have heard becomes prayer. We give it back to the source.
J.D.

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23/09/2021

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24/08/2021

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17/08/2021

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