The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
TO PONDER:
Have you ever lost your keys or phone, an earring or perhaps even a child in a shop? Can you recall that exact moment of realisation when you noticed that thing of value is gone? You rack your brain trying to work out where you have been. You look in the same spot over and over again? You are frantic, desperate...sometimes even irrational as you consider the implications of losing that which is important to you. You look and look and look again. Fear is a powerful emotion.
Which is what makes this passage so powerful and words we need to hear. The Holy Spirit who is at work in us and through us, comes alongside of us in our fear and anxiousness to point us to the love of Christ which drives out all fear. A love that gives us an identity as children of God. A love that hugs us tightly and says we belong to God. A love that enables us to live powerfully and with purpose and confidence in the promises which God has given to us. That is good news...and it's that good news that Jesus wants you to receive, bask in, and share with others today. No matter what happens, you are held in the palm of Jesus. That's the gift of his love, a love that is now possible to live because the resurrected Lord has given us his Holy Spirit.
PRAYER:
Lord, your love, never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out of me. Thankyou Lord for your grace which enables us to live well, and with purpose because of what you have for me. Mark
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
TO PONDER:
What do your social media accounts say about you? If our thoughts guide our actions, our decisions and our words, they also guide what we type with our fingers! So what do your social media accounts say about your thoughts and what's important to you? Is it food, or friends, or family, or furry friends? Is it inspirational quotes or Bible readings? Do you share funny memes. If people looking at your social media feeds only had that to understand and paint a picture of who you are and what is important to you, what would they conclude?
Paul in this section contrasts two lives, as he does in the book of Galatians. Life "according to the Spirit" and life "according to the flesh" (See Galatians 5:16-26). What characterises your life? What is at the core of your life? Where does your mind wander when it is doing nothing? Paul gives only two options...it is either the things of the Spirit or the things of the flesh. Whatever is at your core will affect where your mind goes, how you speak, how you act, what you decide. Only the mind set on the Spirit leads to life. Only the mind set on the Spirit brings peace. Only the mind set on the Spirit will produce fruit that reflects Jesus.
Spend some time thinking today about where your mind naturally heads. What does the Spirit of God need to change and transform in your life so your mind and heart and actions intentionally go towards the things of Jesus?
PRAYER:
Holy Spirit come, Holy Spirit come. Heal our hearts, our lives, Cleanse our thoughts, our minds. Holy Spirit come, Oh come to us. Amen.
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles.
TO PONDER:
It's beautiful to see when it happens. Synchronicity. When things come together perfectly. When two things are in sync with each other. Forwards in sync with their midfield. Dancers in sync. An orchestra in time with one another. A couple who are totally on the same page. A working dog working seamlessly with their owner. Trapeze artists and their catchers wowing the audience with perfect timing.
Synchronicity is at the heart of the reading today. The Word of God and the Spirit of God working in perfect sync. While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. In tandem. In perfect timing. On the same page. And it is beautiful to see. That's always the way when God's Word in spoken. In the speaking of the Word, the Spirit of God is working to open hearts and minds to Jesus. We see it throughout the book of Acts...Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, the jailer and in our reading today with Cornelius. When you hear the Word of God today, the Spirit of God will speak what your heart needs to hear. When you speak the Word of God to someone today, the power of the Spirit will be in sync with that Word, to powerfully work what God desires in the heart of that person. We are seeing that happen, across LifeWay at the moment. And it is so beautiful to see.
May you experience that synchronicity as you hear God's word today in your own life. May you see it at work as you speak the Word of God to someone today.
PRAYER:
Father God, give me courage to share the good news of the Gospel with someone, trusting that your Word and Spirit will be in sync to powerfully work in the lives of those you are calling to you. Amen.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.
TO PONDER:
Many of you will remember doing multiple choice questions at school. You may have four or five possible answers that you need to choose from. Some were easy to discard but normally you would come down to two - one that was correct and one that was almost right. An undiscerning mind could easily mistake the almost right one for the actual correct answer.
Discernment is really important and seems to be increasingly so. Just this morning, I have already received 3 text messages, one telling me that my order from Amazon couldn't be delivered and to click the link to get it redelivered, another from the ATO, telling me to update my details before the end of the financial year to ensure my account details were right for receiving a refund, and a third telling me that I had unpaid Tolls. Without discernment, I could easily click on a link and give access to my details to unknown persons who would use that information to scam me.
Paul is exhorting the Church to be discerning in how we live. To walk with the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to keep in step with the Spirit as we heard this last Sunday from Galatians. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth leads and guides us in our daily living, in walking Jesus' way. But we can douse the flames of the Spirit, we can turn off the light of the Spirit in our lives, when we hear what he says to us through his Word, when we know what he is calling us to, but we don't put into practice what the Spirit is telling us. When we refuse to live at peace with one another, when we are idle or vengeful, when we fail to worship and pray and give thanks (see verses 12-18).
So Paul encourage the Church to be discerning, to test everything against that baseline of God's Word. That our opinions, or those of others, our actions and the actions of others are evaluated against God's Word to us in the Bible. As we spend time with the Word of God and hear what God says to us. As we receive God's Word and listen to the Spirit revealing God's heart, his character and his way to us, we will not quench the Spirit, but fan into flame the Spirit in us and through us. God's Spirit will show us what is right and good and lead us into the fullness of life God desires for each of us.
How discerning are you? Another way of reflecting on that question is to ask yourself, 'How much time am I spending in God's Word and hearing from him?'
PRAYER
Spirit of truth, lead me into all truth today, that in every situation I may discern what it true and good and profitable for the only thing that matters - life with you. Amen.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.Against such things there is no law
TO PONDER:
Before I went to Seminary, I worked two days in a factory that manufactured Air Conditioners. I was assigned to a the Plastics department that produced the plastic fans that went inside. Everything was automated by machines. Punch in the right codes, add the carefully calculated ingredients that were measured accurately the same every time, press the button and the end result was always the same. That's why it's called mass production My job was simply to cut off the daggy bits of plastic when they came out at the end of the process. I bored quickly! Many people see their relationship with God that way....just do the right thing, tick off the right boxes...prayer, reading the Bible, worship, serving others, press the button and you'll come out as a neatly package Christian at the end. Paul actually calls that the works of the flesh. It's the stuff we do, the process we follow to get the outcome we want.
But the Gospel operates differently. Paul switches from a mechanical picture to an organic picture. To the image of fruit. Bearing fruit is not something you do. You don't see it happen. But it does...you see the flower and a little bud on the end, you see a small piece of fruit form that grows and get's bigger and resembles the tree it is supposed to be. Producing fruit is about relationship. Connected to Jesus, your life starts to look more and more like Jesus. Sometimes the change is hard to see, but it's there....and it grows...and over time you see changes, transformation. You see the fruit of his Spirit evident in your life. And when that happens, people want to taste that life....the life of Christ in you...for themselves.
What would people taste if they ate the fruit of your life at the current time?
PRAYER:
Spirit of God, may the fruit you are producing in my life be more and more evident every day. Amen.
“‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
TO PONDER:
It's an image I won't forget. The clouds rolled in quickly and in an instant, the sky turned black. The heavens turned on the tap and the rain came bucketing down in Cambodia al the Tang Krang centre where we were working. It was teeming, it was so hard that it was almost like a blanket of rain. As we looked out the window, the kids were laughing, playing in the rain; standing under the downpipes and getting even more drenched as they played in the mud with sheer delight, freedom and abandon. I will pour out my Spirit on all people, God says. Men, women, children, adults, educated and uneducated, wealthy and poor, prominent and forgotten. That drenching, that anointing of the Spirit is available for everyone.
The problem is that sometimes we don't want to get wet. We certainly don't want to get saturated! So we put up our umbrellas to keep ourselves fry! It could be the umbrella of busyness, unforgiveness, fear, destructive relationships, ritual or tradition, control. Every time we put up the umbrella, we miss out on receiving the gift of joy which the Spirit floods our lives with - the freedom to laugh, to play, to delight in God's unstoppable love, to feel his incredible power and experience his unending peace.
The day of Pentecost was just the beginning of a torrential downpour of the Spirit, that longs to drench everyone daily with power and boldness for living. It was just the beginning of a joy which could forever flood our lives. What umbrella's have you put up to stop you from getting wet? What would it take for you to let those umbrellas go and splash around today in delight, truly free! The kids in Cambodia showed me a glimpse of that life. May you experience it today too!
PRAYER
Spirit of the living God, drench me again today with the power of your love.
Take my imagination and flow through it–
Take my vision and help me grow through it
Fill me with boldness to envision the future as exceptionally as you do and the courage to live it..
Amen.
Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. (NLT)
TO PONDER
Can you hear Him now?
For years my amazing wife would tell me I was deaf and I should go for a hearing test, I, of course, disagreed.
Eventually I caved in and went for a hearing test where I found out I indeed had hearing issues. As it was only “mild to moderate hearing loss” the audiologist advised me not to get hearing aids.
She asked me questions about when did I have issues with my hearing the most... did I look at people when they talked to me, did my wife look at me when she talked to me or did she try to talk to me as she was walking away or in the other room?
Can you hear Him now?
Would it surprise you if I said the Spirit talks to you?
Would it surprise you if I said the Spirit talks to you all the time?
Today’s verse is about hearing the voice/leading of the Spirit. The chapter addresses spiritual deafness, acting as a spiritual audiologist, asking questions about the causes of our hearing loss.
Are we facing the Spirit when He is talking to us, are we walking away instead of towards His voice, are we distracted by our own selfishness?
Can you hear Him now?
The audiologist advised me not to get hearing aids because I didn’t see the need of them, I didn’t admit I had a hearing problem, so my denial would probably stop me from wearing them.
Can you hear Him now?
I can hear my wife now because I addressed the deafness and wear my hearing aids all the time.
PRAYER:
Holy Spirit, I want to hear your voice. I want to be guided by your call. I admit my spiritual deafness and will turn to face you and be led by your voice. Amen.
Today's devotion is written by Westside Church Planter, Danny Brock
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
TO PONDER
I used to read today’s verses on the grand scale of actually dying for a friend, giving one’s life in order to save the life of someone else.
Seventeen years ago on the 26th April I preached on this verse at our surprise wedding (we knew we were getting married by only a few others in attendance knew) at our university church plant in Winnipeg, Canada.
During the sermon I used Michelle and my future marriage as an example of laying down your life daily for someone else in little ways, thinking of the needs of the other person ahead of your needs. While the wedding was very real, the ending of the sermon was staged after I challenged the mostly international students in attendance to lay down their lives daily in service for others, to put the needs of others ahead of their own needs, to think of others before they thought of themselves, to live sacrifically each day in a lot of small ways.
To give up your seat on the crowded bus for someone else, to take the small slice of pizza at the pizza party, share your lecture notes with the absent student, shovel the snow off your neighbours footpath, leave a decent tip at the restaurant even though you’re a poor student.
At the end of every sermon we would open up the service for questions where a staged question from the audience challenged us to begin that daily sacraficial life of marriage on that very night, so we did.
While after 17 years I still often struggle with putting her needs ahead of my own I continue to try every day in little ways, like doing the dishes.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank you for laying down your life for me on the cross and for showing me what living a sacrificial life daily was like through your examples and teaching I read in the Bible, help me lay down my life for my friends. Amen.
Today's devotion written y Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
TO PONDER
“I can forgive BUT I can’t forget!” is a saying I hear frequently and while I get the idea every time I hear someone say it, I feel a bit… confused?
Today’s verse tells us to forgive each other as God forgave us. Very cool but how does God forgive us?
Well, today’s verse says He forgives us “in Christ”, through the life, death & resurrection of Jesus He forgives us, that’s grace!
Isaiah 43:25 tells us; ““I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”, does that sound like God through Jesus forgives us and then “chooses” to, in effect “forget” them?
This is where my problem is with the saying mentioned above, the idea of forgiving someone but not forgetting is saying we will forgive someone but hold our right to say “remember that time you did that thing!”
Now, God is God, He is so much more than we are but even in the Isaiah verse it says for his own sake He remembers our transgressions no more, as a human I have seen the need to choose to not remember the “transgressions” done against me in order to protect my heart from bitterness otherwise I can get “trapped” in someone else’s wrong doing.
Forgive each other as God forgave us and choose to not remember it as well.
PRAYER: Forgiving Father, I thank you for forgiving me, for not holding my sins against me, for sending your son to pay the price of my transgressions. Help me to forgive and forget, in Jesus name, Amen.
Today's devotion written by Dany Brock, LifeWay Westside.