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.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
TO PONDER
I am currently sitting in my local café to do some sermon prep and write some of these “Daily Verse” posts because I find the noise and activity helps my creativity (research suggests distracting environments can help some people be more creative) not because before I drove our youngest boy to school today I noticed my incredible wife, who is working from home today, put a load of laundry on, so if I go home I will end up having to hang it on the line…
Today’s verse is one of those loving, sweet things Jesus said which is a great quote for a poster with cute puppies snuggling up with yellow freshly hatched chicks, in a basket full of flowers.
Well, it is loving but it is not sweet, it’s not about puppies snuggling with baby chickens, and baskets full of flowers but about a life lived in sacrifice given for others.
It’s a calling to, at its simplest, leave the business of my favourite café to go home and hang the washing on the line so my wife doesn’t have to.
PRAYER: Almighty God, you thought it nothing to come down to earth to live and die sacrificially for me, I ask you to help me live sacrificially for all those around me. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Danny Brock, LifeWay West Side
“Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get. (MSG)
TO PONDER
Do you ever think to yourself “OH COME ON!” when someone asks you to help them with something (like move house), or when your neighbour asks to borrow your lawn mower… again? You know, one of those requests where its just that step too far, you’re too busy, they never return what they borrowed, you barely know them, or even you just don’t feel like it.
Sometimes I am tempted to respond to God and what he has said to us through the Bible with a good ol’ “OH COME ONE! Now that’s just going too far!” Of course I don’t… well not as much as I used to.
Today’s verse is one of those times, where Jesus takes it further, so He is not only asking us to “love” our neighbour but He is moving into the “OH COME ON!” zone. When he is saying here to not wait for a person to ask for your help but to notice they have a need and for then for you to meet the need. This verse is what is referred to as “the Golden Rule” and the concept can be found in the writings of most other World religions with varied ways of saying very similar ideas but in the Bible, being an apprentice of Jesus requires us to continually move into the “OH COME ON!”, extra realm.
See we are told not only to love our neighbour, but to forgive our enemy and to not only forgive those who have wronged us but to also bless them, to pray for good things over them, “OH COME ON!”.
We are told not to only love the stranger but to show unreasonable hospitality to them, to treat them as family. “OH COME ON!”
We are told to not grow weary of doing the extra good deeds for others but also to treat our neighbour as family, “OH COME ON!”
AND then we realise our neighbour is anyone who is not you, the stranger, that annoying person at work, the neighbour who doesn’t return your mower, your mortal enemy, everyone… “OH COME ON!”
PRAYER: Jesus, I thank you that you that you loved me even when I was your enemy, that you continuously forgive me, that through you life, death and resurrection through your grace you have made me family, please help me to show the same grace to my neighbour and treat them as family, Amen.
Today's daily devotion written by Danny Brock, LifeWay WestSide
Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.
TO PONDER
Don’t you love it when everything seems to be going your way, when all the traffic lights are green on your way home, even your bank account is overflowing…
Yeah, it doesn’t really happen to me either but I am still blessed to bless others and so are you, even though we may feel lack.
In today’s verse we read how God was going to display his unreasonable hospitality to an old man and his barren wife after he had shown hospitality to strangers. In this we see that Abraham had already displayed the understanding that he was blessed to bless others.
During the hospitality shown towards the strangers we get a glimpse into the lacking within this old man and his barren wife; the lack of children.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome we read; “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
What does that have to do with Abrahams story? Paul is telling the Roman church and by extension us, that in their lacking if they surrender that lack to God they will reap the results of eternal life, which is the overflowing life in John 10:10.
Old man Abraham discovered when we bless others inspite of our lack we are surrendering it to God and experience the overflowing life.
PRAYER: Jehovah-jireh, I know you are the God who provides even from my lack, I ask for your forgiveness for the times I have not been a blessing to others because of what I don’t have, instead of because who you are. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
TO PONDER
I recently read this an a book by John Mark Comer called God Has A Name. In it he says, “Marriage is the art of learning to forgive over and over and over again.” Hopefully, If you’re married you will chuckle and agree with this statement and if you’re not married, I imagine, you would think mariage sounds exhausting…
In today’s verses Paul is encouraging us to do the same thing that John Mark Comer is talking about in his book; not to become weary in doing good, especially when it comes to those closest to us, whether actual family or our Christ born family.
In John’s biography of Jesus he quotes Jesus as saying that everyone will see him in us if we whole-heartedly love our church family (paraphrased John 13:35).
This way of living is part of LifeWay’s DNA; to Share Boldly, to display unreasonable hospitality to our church family and to our neighbours (your neighbour is anyone who is not you).
Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Colossians; “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:12-17
So, the concept of “learning to forgive over and over and over again” is something that doesn’t only belong in marriage but is our fitting response to God’s “aggressive forgiveness” (grace) shown towards us.
PRAYER: Almighty God, I thank you because you first loved me, you forgave me when I didn’t deserve it, you even welcomed me into your family displaying your unreasonable hospitality of grace, I ask you to use me in mirroring this grace to those around me. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside