In Chains
Monday, July 7, 2025
Of Low Estate.
Here God Loves Us and Calls Us
to Speak Boldly of That Love.
Psalm 136:23
It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever.
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Ephesians 6:19-20
Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.
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Words of Grace for Today –
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What the English translates as ‘low estate’ one German translation has as ‘unterdrückt’, ‘suppressed’ (as in suppress one’s anger) or ‘oppressed’ or ‘repress’ or literally ‘pressed down’.
In Mexico and other Central American and South American cities built on hills, the rich have built fantastic estates on the highest hills, not unlike one sees around L.A. The lower one descends down the hillsides (the direction the refuse and excrement flows) into the valleys, the poorer the houses become until in the valleys, in the dreck, one finds the shanties of the poorest.
While enjoying the ‘good times’ of living high on the hills it is more difficult to recognize that all goodness comes from God, and not one’s wealth, fame, or station in life. In the bottom of the valleys of life, where goodness is hard to see, when one recognizes goodness it is much easier to recognize that it comes from God. Still the challenges of life ‘on the top’ and ‘underneath’ can either drive one away from God or towards God.
As we struggle through life’s challenges, it is as if (regardless whether we live on the hilltops or in the valleys) we struggle to exist, as though we were pressed down to the bottom of life, where one misstep leads to death.
Here Jesus finds us, in the low and lower and lowest levels of existence as it becomes survival instead of existence.
Here Jesus finds us, or the reality is, God was with us all along, all along the hard road of life that became ‘low estate’ or poverty or barely surviving. What may change is we become newly aware that God walks with us, so we say ‘Here Jesus finds us’ meaning, even here we are or become aware that God is with us, and
and God loves us, with all the glory and blessing of divine, unconditional, all-powerful love,
and, as we are forgiven, revived, and given new life (though not often pulled out of our ‘low estate’), and newly equipped to give testimony to God’s love …
and as God does all that for us, Jesus sends us out
to share that same glorious blessing of divine love with everyone, with words only when necessary.
We, having been ‘pressed down’ just as olives are pressed down to make precious olive oil, become priceless treasure in God’s Kingdom, life savers for those in greatest need.
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So –
How’s your day going so far?
Up on the hills?
Down in the valleys?
Do you see God walking with you?
Are your ready to share the wonders of God’s love with others?