Grace for Monday

I don’t know about you, but the pinnacle of my week is Sunday, the Lord’s Day. I love gathering with God’s people,fellowship around God’s Word, worshipping Him together, and hearing God’s Word preached. It is a blessed day that seems all too short. The time of worship and exhortation moves my soul to sorrow over my sin, joy because of salvation in Christ, and resolve to live the coming week more for God’s glory than I have before.

But I am grieved at how quickly the fervor of the Lord’s Day can fade into the normality of Monday. Even as I am worshipping on Sunday, I remember the failures of the past week and pray for the grace to do better in the week to come. I want that grace that seems so evident on the first day of the week to burst forth with promise on the second day, and the third, and all week. I don’t want the intentions of The Lord’s Day to be a temporary emotion that fails to last past the church door as I leave. I want grace for Monday, at home, at work, and in the quietness when I am alone. I want to be consistently Christ-like Monday through Saturday. I want my wife, my sons, my fellow workers, and others to see the reality of Christ in me. And far too often they do not.

So what should I do, give up? Never! By God’s grace, that is not an option. When Jesus laid down a difficult path for well-intentioned would-be disciples, many left. Christ looked at the twelve and asked, “Will you also leave?” I have thought about that question and the twelve disciples answer on many occasions. Their response is all any of us who genuinely know Christ could say: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of life.” Those disciples knew their only hope was in Christ. They had left all to follow Him, and without Him life would be pointless. Little did they know how things would change with the coming of the Holy Spirit after Christ’s ascension. Those disciples would face Mondays and Tuesdays just as I do, and the Spirit was no more or less powerful nor more or less available then than now. I have the same resources, and I walk by faith just as they did.

So Sunday I will look to my Savior to give me grace for Monday. And may the Spirit remind me to look to Him every day and transform the intentions of Sunday into realities on Monday. And may you and I look to Christ, not only at the obvious times but during the ordinary times as well; living lives of dependence, submission, and faith. And may the grace of God abound in our lives to the glory of God always.

In the Love of Christ,

Charles Cavanaugh