Daily Advent Devotions from Church Street UMC
Wednesday, December 8
By Beth Cooper-Libby, Preschool Director
A Recipe for Morals
Read Judges 21:25
“In those days there was no king of Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
A boy in Sunday school had been taught by the same teacher for a number of years. She had a way of telling stories and she always ended them by saying: “And the moral of the story is …”Eventually, he was promoted in Sunday school and had a new teacher.
After a few weeks, his mother asked on the way home from church how he liked his new Sunday school teacher. He replied: “She is great; she does not have any morals.”
From the beginning of time, people have been interested in ethics, attempting to determine the basis for what is right and wrong. Although there has been abundant disagreement over what creates the standard of ethical judgments, most people believe there is some sort of objective standard to which human beings are accountable.
Where do your morals, values and ethics come from? This is an essential question, because, whether we realize it or not, each one of us has a defined moral and ethical framework, and many of our ideas come from what we choose to put into our hearts and minds.
Like ingredients in a recipe, you are responsible to pick and choose what goes into your morals. Are you kinder to strangers than you are to your co-workers? Do you give work your best focus, time and energy, leaving the left over scraps for your family? Do you give God the opportunity to offer you the ingredients for your morals or do you select from other informational channels such as gossip, negative media and entertainment? If you reflect on the choices you make during the day, at bedtime can you honestly say, “I was kind.” “I made good choices.” “Did I do what was right in God’s eyes?” Fortunately, God has already given us what is right and wrong. We do not have to wonder or guess. The answers are found in His Word. He tells us, many times in story form, what we can and should do. What ingredients for your recipe can you find there? Parables are easy to understand and rich in guidance. Proverbs also gives us some solid food-for-thought to consider in our seeking guidance for our morals, values and ethics.
Prayer
“For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.” Proverbs 2:6-8 (NIV)
