Today's Devotions

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

Showcase: Assorted Treats

  • Soul of a Man by Blind Willie Johnson +

    Blind Willie Johnson ask in this song: Who am I? What does it mean to have a relationship with God? Read More
  • Shut It Tight, T Bone Burnett +

    I find it hard sometimes to say the way that I feel I do the very things I hate to Read More
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

594896745 MJb9u-TiHave  you ever thought about the passage in Luke where Jesus's parents leave  the city and somehow forget Jesus, assuming he was  with relatives, or someone? AW Tozer has a great discussion  of this in his book, Man, The Dwelling Place of God. (http://life.biblechurch.org/slifejom/holistic-publications/4579-man-the-dwelling-place-of-god-by-a-w-tozer.html). Below are some areas and scriptures that I find I can take God for granted in  my life. I lift  these up to  him and  ask his intercession  in  my heart and  mind, and that his Spirit would lead me to seeing the Trinity as they are, and  worshipping them fully. 

1) (Jesus's parents make assumptions and take their son for granted.)


a) Luke 2: 41-52. Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.


2) (Assumption/take for granted: Pardon without penitence is a delusion which simple honesty requires that we expose for what it is. To be forgiven, a sin must be forsaken.)


a) 2 Corinthians 7:10. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.


3) (Assumption/take for granted: We can keep our hearts and minds in the world.)


a) 1John 2:15-16. Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.


b) Romans 8: 5-8. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.


c) James 4:1-10. Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.


4) (Assumption/take for granted: Possible to live for Christ without first having died with Christ; we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians; the value of religion without righteousness.)


a) Romans 6: 1-14. What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.


5) (Assumption/take for granted: We can do spiritual work without spiritual power. Only the Eternal Spirit can do eternal deeds. David Brainerd once compared a man without the power of the Spirit trying to do spiritual work to a workman without fingers attempting to do manual labor. The Spirit is an imperative necessity.)


a) Luke 4:1. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,


b) 2 Peter 1:21. Because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.


c) 2 Timothy 1:14. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.


d) 1 Thessalonians 1:5. Because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.


e) 1 Corinthians 10:19. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?


f) Romans 15:13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit


g) Acts 20:28. Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son

Reflections to Consider

  • Corporate Spirituality

    Encouragement, Accountability, and Worship Solitude, community and ministry are three areas requiring balance and integration in the Christian walk. The Read More
  • Companion of the Souls

    When the two disciples recognised Jesus as he broke the bread for them in their house in Emmaus, he "vanished Read More
  • 1

Publications

  • 1

Music

  • 1

Audio & Video

  • 1

Favorites

  • Transforming this World: The Hope of Glory by NT Wright +

    Wright confronts the perspective that this world doesn’t matter, and that we live only to be in heaven. He shows Read More
  • What is Good in a World that Defies Hope: a talk by NT Wright +

    This is the second part of three talks by NT Wright at Harvard University in November, 2008 on the topic Read More
  • The Stream, the Lake and the River: NT Wright +

      Acts 2.1-21; John 7.37-39; a sermon at the Eucharist on the Feast of Pentecost, 11 May 2008, by the Read More
  • Jesus in the Perfect Storm by NT Wright +

    Zechariah 9.9-17; Luke 19.28-48; A sermon for Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011, In the University Chapel of St Salvator, St Read More
  • 1

Hidden Blessings

  • Warfare Spirituality +

    The Trinity function as farmers of our souls, actively caring for God’s creation: an ongoing, radical reclamation of His creation. Read More
  • You are free +

    The Jesus who calmed a sea of deadly, stormy waves, whose arrival sent thousands of demons cringing and cowering to Read More
  • Deliver us from Evil +

    Spiritual warfare is something that few Christians, regardless of their denomination, are accustomed to thinking about, let alone engaging in. Read More
  • Baby, you're a rich man! +

    The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is Read More
  • 1