Unrighteous Anger - Sermon on the Mount Series

This week’s devotional was written by J.D Walt and is entitled, Why Anger Management Will Never Get It Done. J.D Walt is the Executive Director and contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

COLOSSIANS 3:7–8

You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

CONSIDER THIS

“You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. . . .”

Paul had never been to Colossae. He didn’t actually know these Colossians, but he knew Jesus. And he knew that when Jesus enters a person’s life, everything changes.

We all have a “life [we] once lived.” We all “used to walk in these ways.” It’s good, from time to time, to take stock of the change in our lives. What are the ways you used to walk in the “life you once lived”? How would you describe the ways you walk in today?

OK, I’ll go first. I used to be a really angry person. You would have never known it because I spent a lot of energy keeping it at bay. Only the people closest to me would have had a sense of my anger. And the crazy thing about anger is you aren’t really angry about what you are angry about. You know what I’m talking about?

Anger is a normal human emotion—until it takes root in your inmost self. Then it becomes like malignant cancer. Anger unbridled becomes rage. Anger imprisoned within becomes depression. It can be really complex, but the primary source of anger is pain. You don’t get rid of anger by trying to not be angry. You have to deal with your pain. Anger is pain’s wounded ambassador.

What does it look like to rid ourselves of our particular sin propensities? My journey toward ridding myself of anger was long and complex, but I think there may be a general pattern and progression that can be helpful for other issues.

First, and for the longest time, I was unaware of my anger issues. Somewhere along the way, by the grace of God (and a little help from my friends—also the grace of God), I became self-aware. Then, because I began to understand how my anger was hurting others, I started to care. I realized how powerless I was against this volcanic force within me. As noted, trying harder to not be angry did not work. It made me angrier. At that point I began to pull out my hair (not literally) and swear (see also “filthy language” from the list above). Are you feeling my rhyme scheme yet?

Throughout this process I was meeting regularly with a few trusted friends who were listening and praying with me. I sought the help of a counselor, who helped me identify and delve into the deeper sources of my pain, which led me into a process of forgiveness. Further, this led me to work with a pastor friend of mine who led me through a process of deliverance prayer. (Catch that rhyme?)

All of this brings me to the final rhyme in the scheme of this journey of riddance—share. God shared his nature with me, which is love. From beginning to end it was the love of God that delivered me from anger, and when anger is touched by love, it becomes love. Anger management, like any other form of sin management, will never get it done.

So, there you have it—the life I once lived—from unaware to self-aware to beginning to care to pulling out my hair to the temptation to swear to healing prayer to God’s decision to share. We want it to be so much simpler and quicker, and sometimes it is. The cross always has a will of its own, and it is always for God’s glory and our good.

Do I ever get angry anymore? Of course. Like everyone else, I have anger. Anger just doesn’t have me anymore.

THE PRAYER

Abba Father, we thank you for your Son, Jesus, who not only shows us the way of the cross but who walks every step of the way with us. Open my eyes to the sin I am unaware of, and lead me on the grace-filled journey of riddance, for your glory and my good. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Fulfilling the Plan - Sermon on the Mount Series

This week’s devotional was written by the Bible Project Scholarship Team and includes excerpts from an article entitled, How Does Jesus Fullfill The Law? We hope you will be encouraged.

You have heard it said that Jesus came to fulfill the law, but I tell you that Jesus never made that claim. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says he came to fulfill “the Law and the Prophets,” a traditional phrase that refers to the whole Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). And he’s not talking about simple obedience to the statutes. For Jesus, following the law’s 613 commands matters, but to truly fulfill it, or to “fill it full,” is something more. 

So what is Jesus really saying here? What does it mean to fill the Law and the Prophets full? We can tackle the question in two parts. 

First, context can show us how Jesus fulfills the law by completing a long story. The Law and the Prophets describe a time when God would start healing all humanity and creation through one key person (and a group of people). Matthew believes Jesus is filling the Law and Prophets full by becoming that key person. 

Second, Matthew 5:17 is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), where he is teaching from the Hebrew Bible. Jesus is giving instructions for a specific righteousness—a way of right relating with God and neighbor—that the Law and the Prophets have long described. Following these instructions fills all of Scripture full. 

Jesus does obey the Law and the Prophets, but his deeper work is to fulfill them. He and his followers live in a powerful way that the Hebrew Scriptures had been talking about since “In the beginning…” (Gen. 1:1).

Jesus Fulfills the Biblical Story

In the garden of Eden, after humanity’s decision to disobey God’s first instruction (Gen. 3), we read about many like Moses and the people of Israel who try to partner with God but fall short. Jesus accomplishes what these human partners attempted but could not complete, which is one way to understand what it means for Jesus to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Others partially fulfilled what Jesus entirely fulfills. 

Imagine what it might have been like to listen to a skilled orator tell Jesus’ story as a Jewish person during the 1st century. The speaker starts with Jesus’ birth, describing how King Herod’s hatred and jealousy drove him to order the murder of all male infants in the region (Matt. 2). You’re connecting the dots between Herod of Israel and the Pharaoh of Egypt, who also ordered the murder of Israelite male babies in his region (Exod. 1). 

Your people’s foundational salvation story seems to be happening again—but in a new way. Moses fled from his home to survive, but he returned to set the people free. The orator says that Jesus and his family also fled to survive, and they also returned (Matt. 2). Moses’ return started an exodus—an escape from slavery into freedom through the waters (Exod. 4-10). Is Jesus a new Moses, starting a new exodus? 

You hear about Jesus passing through the Jordan River in his baptism, signaling his intent to lead everyone safely through the waters into a renewed world (Matt. 3), which sounds a lot like Moses leading people through sea waters en route to God’s promised land. And by the time the speaker has finished telling Jesus’ story, you can’t help but see the connections. Jesus is exactly like the anointed one spoken about by the prophets, going through the same kinds of tests that Moses, Israel, and other key Hebrew Bible characters faced (but did not pass). 

As a new Israelite leader, Jesus stays true to God through every test, filling the Law and the Prophets full at every turn (Matt. 4). And, interestingly, it’s not only about Jesus. By choosing and guiding an expanding group of people who choose to follow him, Jesus is filling full another part of the story that often gets missed.

We find clarity in his Sermon on the Mount. 

Jesus Teaches People How To Fulfill the Law and the Prophets

Matthew captures Jesus’ most poignant teaching in chapters 5-7, often called the Sermon on the Mount. He begins with his vision for human life in the Kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 5:1-12). It’s an upside-down kingdom where the humiliated and afflicted find honor, never to experience poor treatment again. It’s a world where the greatest power is love, not wealth or might. It’s a kingdom where the ways of God and the ways of humankind become united as one. 

Life in God’s Kingdom, Jesus says, is about completing (or filling full) one's love for others. By loving God and neighbor, average people join God in the work of establishing his Kingdom (e.g. Matt. 22:37-40). Through their love, people living in Jesus’ way welcome all others to enter his world, where Heaven and Earth meet (see Matt. 5:14-16). 

For example, the command “Do not murder” seems achievable on the surface—just don’t murder people. But Jesus suggests this is not the law’s ultimate goal. Yes, the point was to end human violence, but even more it was to guide people into the attitudes and ways of loving one another. 

When we avoid murder, we partly fill the law. When we love, we fill it full. 

New Testament scholar R.T. France says Jesus’ teachings deal “not so much with the negative goal of avoidance of the wrong but focuses more on the positive goal of discovering and following what is really the will of God for his people.”1 The Apostle Paul understands Jesus’ teachings in the same way. “See that no one pays back evil for evil to anyone,” he writes, “but always pursue what is good for one another and for all” (1 Thess. 5:15).

Read on its own, apart from the whole biblical story, biblical law often gets misinterpreted, leading to religious-looking behaviors that still allow space for ongoing contempt and hatred in our hearts. But Jesus and the apostles say that these commandments, taken together with the rest of the Hebrew Bible, are instructions that restore human beings’ love for one another (e.g. Matt. 5:17-19, 7:12, 22:37-40). 

In this way, love fills full the Law and the Prophets.

Don't Be Road Dust - Sermon on the Mount Series

This week’s devotional was written by J.D Walt and is entitled, Would You Like Some Fries With That Salt? J.D Walt is the Executive Director and contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

CONSIDER THIS. . .

Something about salt. . . . I love to salt every chip at the Mexican Restaurant. The salt acts as a kind of catalyst, an activator at work between and among the chip and the queso and the salsa. Not only does it bring out the flavor of each member of this magnificent trifecta of Hispanic delight, but it effects an explosion of taste among them that none of the ingredients, either alone or together, can produce. We might even say the salt activates a type of trinitarian unity among them.

When I’m at Five Guys , I love to salt every bite of the burger. I don’t care that I have to deal with the cumbersome little salt packages. Something about a tiny bit of salt calls out the deepest flavors in food. Then there’s the famed McDonalds’s fries. You know it’s not the fries don’t you? Those are just ordinary potatoes thinly sliced. It’s the salt! Watch as the fry chef dumps the basket of deep fried goodness into the fry trough behind the counter. What happens next? The fry-meister takes that large container of finely granulated salt and artistically sifts it  over the fresh batch of glistening glory. If only we could see into the unseen spirit realm of the world of the french fry– might there be a burst of unapproachable light flashing as the salty savor descends upon the ordinary spuds? Might this even be akin to the spontaneous ignition of the fiery tongues of Pentecost as the savor of the Holy Spirit descended on the ordinary humanity of the Apostles?

I know. I’m getting carried away. But isn’t that the point?! Most of the time when someone is referred to as a “salt of the earth” kind of person, it means they are a hard working, generally rural, upstanding citizen. Though there’s nothing wrong with that, don’t you think it misses the point of what Jesus is saying here?

I like the way Wesley speaks of this metaphor of salt in the following excerpt: 

“It is your very nature to season whatever is round about you. It is the nature of the divine savor which is in you, to spread to whatsoever you touch; to infuse itself, on every side, to all those among whom you are. This is the great reason why the providence of God has so mingled you together with other men, that whatever grace you have received of God may through you be communicated to others; that every holy temper, and word, and work of yours, may have an influence on them also.

Would somebody pass the salt?

Characteristics of the Kingdom - Sermon on the Mount Series

This week’s devotional is an excerpt from the book, The Call to Contentment: Life Lessons from the Beatitudes written by Norman Wilson and Jerry Brecheisen. We hope you will be encouraged.

Introduction

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.…—Matthew 5:1–2

It was the traditional posture for a Jewish teacher. Seated, surrounded by watchful eyes and eager ears. Also sitting on the hard ground were devoted students who hoped that the truths of the ages would fall from the lips of their rabbi. They were attentive, expectant.

But this was no ordinary educator. This was the Master whose words had echoed through the halls of heaven. And these weren’t merely the truths of the ages. They were the truths of eternity. These were authoritative insights from One who had lived a perfect life yet walked shoulder-to-shoulder with the common man, life lessons from the Giver of Life.

There was no doubt that what He would say would be worth enduring the discomfort of a Judean hillside to hear. The God of Creation was about to school mere mortals on the Kingdom of Heaven. He would show them how to be whole and happy in the here and now while keeping the gleam of eternity in their eyes. This would be no lifeless, yawn-inspiring oration, but a refreshing draught from the well of wisdom, welcome encouragement for world-weary pilgrims. The disciples gathered; the crowds listened in.

We’re still listening.

You and I need to know how to focus on the eternal.

We still need to learn contentment and love while living in a world of grabbers and users. We still need blessing. We still need peace. Perhaps now, more than ever.

The Secret to Happiness

Pascal said, “We never really live, but we hope to live,” and it’s true. Most of us are straining for something that seems just out of reach. Or else why are some people happy while others are steeped in misery? Why do some whistle while others whine?

What would it take to make you happy? A new job? A new home? A new relationship? Money in the bank? Better health? I’ve learned—often the hard way—that none of these things bring contentment. Oscar Wilde epitomized our condition when he wrote, “We are always arranging for being happy, but we never are.”

Is it even possible to be content in a discontented world?

Jesus of Nazareth says yes.

In this awesome introduction to the world’s greatest sermon, He spells out the winning formula in practical terms. Answers flowed from the heart of the Galilean that day as He defined happiness in a way that would cause any of us to sit patiently on the cold ground, eagerly awaiting the next word.

And the lesson was remarkably simple.

Jesus taught us that blessedness—happiness—isn’t something you do or something you have or even something you are. Happiness is the response of your heart to the grace of God in your life. We are blessed—we are happy—because we have sought God and found Him. Happiness springs from knowing His peace and purpose in our lives.

The Real Thing

The Beatitudes form the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, the tax collector turned truth-gatherer, documented the event, recording the words of his Master. Here is the most practical job description for a human being that has ever been written. No greater life lessons have ever been taught.

Jesus began at the very center of human need—the longing for contentment. “Blessed are—,” He pronounced. The phrase blessed are can be translated happy are.

The Greek language has two words for happiness. One indicates a happiness derived from external sources. The other, the one used here, denotes happiness that comes from within. The former draws joy from circumstances: good weather, good health, and good friends; possessions, position, and prestige.

That brand of happiness seldom brings lasting contentment. As Thackeray reflected, “Vanity of Vanities! which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?”

The latter happiness exists even when the perks of prosperity are lacking. It is plugged into a different power source. Jesus says you can be refreshed even in the desert. You can sing even in the storm. You can learn to wrap your arms around a persecutor and call him friend.

That’s not happiness as we usually understand it. It isn’t happiness based on external conditions; it has an internal source. This is happiness that can be experienced regardless of the situation. It’s the state of being that allowed the Apostle Paul to write from the confines of a Roman prison, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4).

The Starting Point

It’s said that the first word in the teaching of Buddha is suffering. I notice that the first word in the teaching of Christ is blessed. The Christian life is a life of blessing. Through these powerful principles, Jesus tells us how to live above the wanting, whining, and warring of society.

He tells us how to find comfort in the midst of pain.

He tells us how to feel joy in spite of grief.

He tells us how to feed on abundance though surrounded by poverty.

The Master Teacher says that we can be content without material things, holy without natural goodness, and loving without obvious graces.

Unnatural?

By whose standards?

Jesus set the bar high enough to make the leap humanly impossible, but low enough to make it attainable this side of heaven. Multitudes of hungry hearts departed the mountain filled with the Bread of Life.

The feast continues.

The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t have an expiration date. The Beatitudes have an eternal shelf life. If you are seeking—really seeking, desperately seeking—a spiritual nail upon which to hang your tattered burdens, I invite you to begin here, with the Beatitudes.

Here are eight statements of eternal truth for times like these.

Sermon on the Mount Series - Pastor Holly

This week’s devotional was written by the Bible Project Scholarship Team and includes excerpts from an article entitled, What is the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus Teaches About The Good Life. We hope you will be encouraged.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ most well-known teaching and one of history’s most famous speeches ever. Jesus delivered this sermon 2,000 years ago, and the implications of these words are still shockingly relevant and meaningful.

Emphasizing humility, forgiveness, and generous care for our neighbors, Jesus encourages people to choose God’s way of love, which will eventually renew all of creation. He calls this restored world God’s Kingdom. This is a realm in which Heaven and Earth are inseparably combined, a place where life flourishes that’s free from injustice, suffering, and death. 

We’re not sure if Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount as one big speech or if Matthew collected Jesus’ key teachings over time and organized them into a sermon-style scene (recorded in Matthew 5-7). Either way, this sermon contains some of the most rigorous ethical demands in the Bible. It has wild ideas like “blessed are the peacemakers” and “love your enemies” and “pray for people who persecute you.” 

These ideas might pass for utopian ideals, but they’re nonsense (and weak) in our modern empires, where leadership usually means strength and power more than vulnerability and love.

Jesus as the New Moses

Throughout the biblical story, God instructs people in many ways, but two teachers—Moses and Jesus—become primary human instructors. Moses was the only one who experienced God face-to-face (Exod. 33:11), and Jesus is God himself in the flesh. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, through Jesus, God shows up like a new Moses, arriving to rescue not only all of Israel but all of humanity. 

As such, Matthew casts Jesus not only as a new Moses but also as a greaterMoses. Somehow, in a speech where Jesus never tells people to respect him or to bow down, the crowds still recognize strong authority in Jesus’ words. His teaching seems to have the ring of truth, and it fits with the Hebrew Bible’s instruction they already know, yet it leaves them utterly astonished (Matt. 7:28). 

Jesus is disrupting the common expectations of their world. Moses' teaching also disrupted the common expectations of the Egyptian empire and its Hebrew slaves. Moses taught an enslaved people to become free, not by turning to violence but by turning their attention to God and following his lead—trusting his instruction—which becomes a core theme in the Exodusnarrative. That had to sound crazy to enslaved people. Just follow God and trust him to deal with their enemies? But they did, and God set them free as promised. 

Like most of us throughout history, the crowds listening to Jesus assume that evil gets eradicated from our world with strong military power and the wealth it takes to build armies. But Jesus goes nowhere near that or an idea that depends on force, coercion, or violence. He promises with his life that the power of God’s love, along with those who choose to embrace it, will eventually outlast and overwhelm all evil everywhere. 

Don’t fight evil with the power of evil, Jesus says. Instead, join God in creating goodness throughout the land. If Jesus’ followers listen to his words, they will start seeing their enemies as neighbors and miracles of God who are worthy of love. All evil and every oppressor will ultimately be defeated, Jesus teaches, not with swords but with God’s creative, renewing love. 

Moses’ law had always been pointing in this exact same direction. It always intended to form its followers into loving people who honor God by blessing every family on Earth (see Genesis 12:1-3). Jesus is now making good on that intent by finishing—or filling full—the work that Moses’ instruction started.

How God’s World Will Be Transformed

Moses joined God in this life-renewing work back in Egypt. And Matthewportrays Jesus as a new Moses to signal that Jesus is doing the same thing. He is continuing the rescuing work God started long ago. But he’s introducing an unexpected trajectory through his Sermon on the Mount, opening humanity’s eyes to the deeper meaning of Moses’ Torah. 

As it is, Jesus’ teaching implies that the world won’t be fixed through the elimination of human enemies or through merely escaping our world for a better utopia in the clouds. God’s world—on Earth as it is in Heaven—will be transformed by changed human hearts. Jesus’ frustrated Galilean crowds were probably as unhappy to hear this as we likely are. They want God’s power to destroy their enemies, not God’s power to bless and heal and love them. In fact, Matthew says at the end that Jesus’ crowds were utterly shocked, astounded, and amazed. 

Despite hearing the most intense ethical teaching they had ever heard, far greater than any legal experts or religious elites, the people still somehow knew that Jesus spoke truth. And isn’t it true for each of us that, deep down, we prefer kindness and love more than hate or contempt?

“When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed by his teaching,” Matthew writes to conclude, “because Jesus taught them like one who had authority, not like their experts in the law” (Matt. 7:28, NET).

Freedom Sunday 2025 - With Rev. Dr. Kevin Austin

 
 

Every so often, we will have a guest speaker at CrossView Church. We are so grateful for the gifted women and men that serve the Lord through teaching the word. This week we hear from Rev. Dr. Kevin Austin. Kevin is the founder and director of the Set Free Movement. The Set Free Movement works to mobilize faith communities, financial partners, and all segments of society towards ending human trafficking and creating new futures through community-based action. You can find out more information about The Set Free Movement by clicking here. We hope you are encouraged by this week’s message.

Usually, when we have a guest speaker, we will not have a weekly devotion. We encourage you to watch the message again at some point throughout the week.

Blessings on you and your week.

Pastor Kyle

Resources:

Guest Preacher - Pastor David Hicks: God's Big Table

 
 

Every so often, we will have a guest speaker at CrossView Church. We are so grateful for the gifted women and men that serve the Lord through teaching the word. This week we hear from Pastor David Hicks. Pastor David is a retired Free Methodist Pastor and Leader. He served as Lead Pastor at CrossView Church in the early 2000s. We hope you are encouraged by this week’s message.

Usually, when we have a guest speaker, we will not have a weekly devotion. We encourage you to watch the message again at some point throughout the week.

Blessings on you and your week.

Pastor Kyle

The Light of Christ at Christmas - Christmas Sunday 2024

This week’s devotional was written by Mark Sorenson and is entitled, Deep Darkenes and a Great Light. Mark Sorenson contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

ISAIAH 9:2

The people walking in darkness
       have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
       a light has dawned.

CONSIDER THIS

One of my favorite times of the day during the season of Advent is early in the morning before the sun comes up when the house is perfectly quiet and still. I’ll fix a cup of coffee, grab my Bible, turn on our Christmas tree lights in the living room, and settle into my favorite chair. There’s nothing quite like reading the Word by the light of the Christmas tree.

This morning, while reflecting over this devotional by twinkly lights, I must confess that I got curious. When did the first Christmas tree with electric lights happen, and what was the story with that? Good news. There’s a Wikipedia page for that.1

The year was 1882, and his name was Edward Johnson. Though you may not be familiar with his name, you might be more familiar with who he worked for: Thomas Edison. Edward Johnson was Edison’s associate and served as the vice president of Edison Electric Light Company. On a cold day in December, he got a crazy idea to invent walnut-sized light bulbs in the colors of red, white, and blue and string them on a Christmas tree that would illuminate and flicker when plugged in. Though it didn’t catch on initially, the idea would eventually take root, and by 1930, most homes had them on their trees.

I can’t help but think about how lights have changed over the years. My earliest memories of Christmas tree lights go back to my childhood and visits to my grandmother’s house in East Texas. One of my favorite decorations at her house was an aluminum Christmas tree that had a color wheel that was plugged in next to it. Though that tree didn’t have any lights on it, it was still magic. As the silver aluminum Christmas tree sat there, the color wheel would slowly turn, changing the tree into the colors of orange to green to red to blue. I would literally sit and stare at it, mesmerized. But, by far, my favorite Christmas lights were the ones on the other artificial tree at Grandmother’s house; they were known as bubble lights. They literally got so warm that the liquid inside them would bubble in the spirit of old-school lava lamps.

Though the lights may have changed over the years, their purpose has not: to bring light into the darkness. No matter the setting or surroundings, no matter how dark a room or neighborhood street may be, once you flip on those small Christmas lights, the room or street takes on a different perspective. Illumination minimizes the darkness, and the world is just a little less scary as a result.

That’s the beauty of light, and that was the promise and prophecy Isaiah made seven hundred years before that first Christmas morning.

In Isaiah 9, the Israelites had done it again. Though they were once in captivity in Egypt, God had led them into a place of freedom and the promised land. Yet, little by little, they wandered. The line from the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” comes to mind: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”2 And that is exactly what happened to the Israelites. They wandered, and, as a result, once again, they found themselves in captivity—this time in Babylon.

It had to have been a dark and scary time for God’s people. Yet it was here, within captivity and darkness, that Isaiah would throw out a spark of light and hope: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (9:2). How beautiful is this promise? Isaiah was declaring that a time was approaching that not just darkness but deep darkness would soon be illuminated by light, and that light was not just any ordinary light, it would be a great light.

Deep darkness cannot stand against the Great Light that is to come.

What was true seven hundred years before Christ’s birth is just as relevant for us today, some two thousand years after his birth.

Perhaps a good suggestion for today is this: plug in this truth and shine that over the dark places of your life today.

THE PRAYER 

God of wonder, we thank you for light. What comfort it brings us all to know that darkness does not and will not have the final word over our lives. Jesus, thank you for being the Light of the World. May we not only hold this light in our lives but shine that light to all we encounter in Jesus’s mighty name. Amen.

A Love That Transforms - Advent 2024

This week’s devotional was written by Matt Leroy and is entitled, Love Local (Go Small and Go Home). Matt Leroy contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

Colossians 1:15-20:

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

CONSIDER THIS

It was one of those mornings. My twin sons, Luke and Sam, were about 5 or 6 years old. And they once again transformed the drive to school into an open forum Question and Answer session where no theological curiosity was off limits. I did my best to answer in a way they could grasp. It went something like this:

Luke: Dad, if Jesus is in my heart, how can he be in heaven at the same time?

Me: Great question, buddy. Because Jesus is God and he can be everywhere at once.

Luke: But Dad, I thought there was only one Jesus. How can one person be everywhere?

Me: Another great question. He is so big that he fills up everything everywhere so he can be everywhere and right there with you at the same time.

Sam: But Dad, if Jesus is so big, then why can’t we see him?

These Kindergarten / Kingdom sized curiosities are answered in Advent. This season of mystery invites and awakens childlike faith. Not just to grasp the right answers. But to keep asking the right questions.

Author Madeleine L’Engle employed the phrase, “the irrational season” to describe this journey we’re on. This moment that asks us to believe the impossible and stake everything on it. That the massive God who fills all things makes Himself small enough to see. For all the times He reveals Himself through fire and flood and plague and blinding glory, in this moment we see Him most clearly. As the Transcendent descends. The Universal localized. The image of the invisible God.

In addition to my role as theology student under Luke and Sam, I’m also one of the pastors at a quirky little church called Love Chapel Hill in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Our name is our mission: Love Chapel Hill with the heart of Jesus. In the early days of planting this church, we often heard hyped up strategists and leadership experts repeat the rallying cry, “go big or go home.” Instead, we took on the counter approach of “go small and go home.” In other words, start small, right where we are. Love Local, we like to say, as a reminder that the next opportunity to proclaim the gospel of Jesus is not waiting in the spotlight on the biggest stage, but right in front of us as we walk down the street, hiding in the form of outcast or neighbor or stranger. Every moment is an opportunity to make the highest truth and deepest theology and largest love small enough to see.

Of course, this no innovation. It is simply an imitation of the image of the invisible God. The One in whom all the fullness of God dwells, and yet He comes and dwells with us. The massive God who fills all things and makes Himself small enough to see.

THE PRAYER

God of fullness who fills all things, make Yourself small enough to see through me. And give me eyes to see You made small through others.

The Joy of God's Presence - Advent 2024

This week we want to share with you a devotion entitled “Joy to the World: A Reflection on Advent” This devotion was written by Jonathan Powers. Dr. Powers is Assistant Professor of Worship Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. We hope you will find these words to be helpful and encouraging as you read.

One of the most popular and well-beloved hymns of the Christmas season is Isaac Watts’ “Joy to the World.” Not only is it common in the weeks surrounding Christmas to hear the song played on the radio and sung in the church, but the words “Joy to the World” are also frequently found imprinted on Christmas cards, displayed on banners, and woven in Christmas sweaters. Undeniably, it is difficult to find better words that sum up the jubilant celebration of Christ’s incarnation than “Joy to the world!” Yet, as wonderful and fitting as the words are, the song was not originally written as an observance on Christmas.

The hymn, “Joy to the World” first appeared in 1719 in a hymnbook of psalms for congregational singing published by Isaac Watts entitled The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship. Much of the congregational singing during Watts’ time was limited exclusively to metrical paraphrases of the Psalms. This practice was established by John Calvin, who, during the Reformation, translated the Psalms into the common language of the people to foster congregational singing. Watts was not satisfied with the practice of psalm-singing, however, and felt a lack of joy and emotion among congregants as they sang. His father therefore offered him a challenge – write a different hymnody for the church. Taking up the challenge, Watts began a lifelong practice of composing lyrics that wed personal and emotional subjectivity with theological and doctrinal objectivity. 

Isaac Watts’ inspiration for “Joy to the World” came via a Christological meditation on Psalm 98. Verse 4 of the psalm especially grabbed his attention: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” As Watts thought about how the verse could be understood through the person and work of Jesus Christ, he believed the psalm was to be rightfully interpreted through the lens of Christ’s second coming rather than his first. Particularly, Watts believed verses 8 and 9 frame the psalm in a future-orientation rather than a past event: “Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.”

Take a moment and read through the lyrics of the hymn (which are provided below). Note that the opening line is not, “Joy to the world! The Lord has come,” as if Watts was talking about a past act, but rather “Joy to the world! The Lord iscome.” Also note that none of the typical Christmas imagery is present. There is no explicit focus on Christ’s incarnation or birth. Rather, the lyrics speak more about Christ’s rule and reign. Not that the reign of Christ is an unfitting topic for the Christmas season – see Charles Wesley’s “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” for example – but it is also a very fitting topic for another season in the church calendar, the season of Advent, a time of anticipating Christ’s final rule and victory.

Advent is a season focused on preparing for the coming of Emmanuel. It is both a beginning and an end to the Church’s pilgrimage through the life of Christ – a time to recall the world’s expectation and longing for the first coming of Jesus Christ into our humanity and a time to anticipate his second coming in final victory.

Take a moment and read through the lyrics again. Think about them in light of Christ’s second coming. When interpreted primarily through the final chapters of Revelation instead of the first chapters of the Gospel of Luke, the lyrics take on a different dynamic meaning for the church today. The words bring hope in the midst of darkness, trial, and tribulation. They anticipate the joy that Christ’s reign will bring. They proclaim the cosmic doxology that will occur when heaven comes to earth. They remind us that sin will be eradicated and truth and grace shall rule.

May these words find their way into our eyes, ears, mouths, and minds this Advent and Christmas season. And may we all be filled with joy as we look forward with hope, as did God’s people long ago, to the coming of Emmanuel.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love.

Proclamation of Peace - Advent 2024

This devotion was written by Andy Stoddard and is entitled, “Can We Really Have Peace?” Andy Stoddard is a contributing author at Seedbed.com. We hope you will find these words to be helpful and encouraging as you read.

I’ve been thinking a lot about peace recently.  We are in the midst of Advent, a season of hope, peace, love, and joy.  It’s in this season when we proclaim the words of Isaiah 9:6-7:

For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

The Prince of Peace is born!  That’s what we say.  That’s what we believe.

That’s what we believe: as Christians, as the church, that’s what we believe. And in the world that we live in, that makes us look different.  Off.  Odd.

And you know what?  Good.  We are supposed to.  We aren’t supposed to be like the world.  We aren’t supposed to be like the culture.

We are supposed to be different.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:10 – we are fools for Christ.  We are supposed to look differently, believe differently, act differently.  We are called to have a different hope, joy, love, and peace.

As I regularly say, if you tell folks you are Christian and they say, “really?”  that’s not a good sign.  We have to look and to be different from the world.

I’m not saying that there aren’t things to be afraid of.  I’m not saying that there aren’t things that can take our peace, take our joy, take our hope, take our love.

Of course there are!  There are big, scary, worrisome things.  But please hear me.

God is bigger.

God is stronger.

God is more mighty.

He is bigger than your fears.

And as Christians, believing that is who we are.

And the world needs us to believe it and know it.

Your peace will not come from an absence of conflict or absence of things that are you are afraid of.

Your peace will come from the trust and assurance of this truth: no matter what you face, no matter what you are afraid of – God is bigger. And God is good.

Jesus Christ is the prince of peace.

Yesterday.

Today.

Forever.

He is our peace.

Will you trust him today?

Hope as an Anchor - Advent 2024

This week’s devotional was written by Sarah Wanck and is entitled, A Hopeful Invitation. Sarah Wanck is a contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

CONSIDER THIS

The beginning of Advent doesn’t begin in the story of shepherds and angels or even in John’s joyful introduction of a coming Messiah. Advent begins long before, when the darkness was all-consuming, and all hope seemed lost. Advent begins in the dark. Much like light broke forth over the pitch black of an unformed creation, Advent begins in the helplessness and hopelessness of the night. Today’s passage is no different. An important part of our reflection, our preparation for the coming Christ, is remembering the despair of the people of God and how God’s promise entered in there too. 

The book of Isaiah is a narrative of the events regarding the people of God during a painful time of destruction and division and Isaiah’s prophecy in it. Just before this passage, Isaiah spoke of sin, conviction, and the death that comes in separation from God. But the previous chapter ends with a glimpse of a coming hope for a people lost in hopelessness. 

Before we talk about today’s beautiful words, we have to acknowledge what was happening for those who first heard them. The people of God, long ago, had been chosen, set apart, favored, and protected. Even though they struggled with seasons of great disobedience and rebellion, God would reach in with his promise of redemption and care, repeatedly renewing his promise to make this nation as numerous as the stars in the night sky. But the people of God, in this season of Isaiah’s prophecy, had been divided, destroyed, and oppressed. They were as far from the fulfillment of God’s promise to be a great nation as they could ever be. They had been conquered by another people, their territory divided, and their holy city destroyed.

While they are actively living in the darkness of deep despair, Isaiah commands these words. “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” Arise. Get up. The glory of the Lord rises on you. The power of that contrast has a hard time sinking in for me. In the division. In the despair. When we are convinced everything’s gone, is that when we’re supposed to rise up? And, with a clarity we only have in hindsight, even as Isaiah declared this prophecy, there was more darkness ahead when their holy temple would be laid bare by a conquering nation. The place where they worshiped, the very place of God’s presence with them, would soon be gone. 

How in the world can you rise up when so much has fallen flat?

In the darkness of their despair, Isaiah shares a prophecy of encouragement, that God has not forgotten them, that the world’s redemption was still coming, and to not lose hope for the coming of their Messiah and King. 

But when you’re in the darkness, it’s hard to believe. 

Some of you know our story; many others do not. Part of the redemption of our pain is sharing it, so others can find God in their darkness too. Late in December 2020, actually the day the Bethlehem star appeared in the sky, Gabe and I learned we were, quite literally, miraculously pregnant. Many years before, we had given up hope for biological children, and the Lord healed our hearts through the incredible gift of adoption. But just to show off, the Lord gave us the gift of pregnancy and a sweet baby girl. We shared the story of her miracle with anyone who would hear, so God would be glorified in her gift. Then, just weeks before we expected her arrival, she was gone. Without notice or cause, our little miracle slipped through our grasp. And we fell into a pit of incredible despair. 

If you’ve been in a place of deep darkness and incredible despair, you know that somehow the emotions of despair, fury, and heartbreak swirl around in the numbness and confusion that strips you of all capacity. And sometimes, many times, all you can do is allow yourself to be swept up in the grief and the darkness of night. 

Just three months after that incredible heartbreak, Gabe and I returned to our spiritual home at the New Room Conference. We needed to be there. We needed our spiritual family and to worship the Lord in spite of our pain. One particular night of the conference, the speaker invited us to a time of ministry and prayer to find our way forward in surrender if we needed to “rise up” out of the graves of our despair. 

I couldn’t move forward fast enough and laid myself upward across the steps of the altar and stage. I laid there peacefully, honestly, and in the fullness of grief; I invited God to raise me up, lift me out of this darkness, and restore my broken heart to fullness of life. And as I lay there, he eventually, and so very gently, said to my soul, “not yet.”

The tension of Advent is the pull between the darkness and the light. We live in the pain of actively unfolding darkness, even while the promise of Christ’s breaking into the darkness is already accomplished. The people of God were living in the pain of destruction and oppression, but Isaiah was calling them to take heart in a brightness that would still come, but they couldn’t yet see. He was asking them to believe that the dawn was breaking before it actually did. In fact, it would be seven hundred years before Christ’s light would dawn on earth. Isaiah was encouraging them with hope, the promise that God had not forgotten them, that he would prevail, and one day, in Christ’s time, they would truly “rise up.” 

Until then, until that day, the rising of their dawn would not be in the physical arrival of the Messiah or the restoration of their nation; the rising would simply be in them as they allowed the hope of God’s faithfulness to break forth in the dark places of their spirit and bring new life. Though in the darkness of our pain, my “rising” wouldn’t come for a while. When the Lord said, “not yet,” the yet was evidence that one day I would. 

This Advent, Christ breaking in through you, maybe the hopeful encouragement that one day, your rising will come, and one day, his return will come too. 

THE PRAYER

Father God, we give you thanks for your faithfulness through the ages. We stand in awe of your vision that can see from the beginning to the end, the promise of resurrection, redemption, and arrival. And we join you in the believing command that your presence with us can raise our spirits, repair our broken hearts, and give us hope to cling to. When we’re not ready to rise just yet, help us to feel your patient presence, waiting with us in our pain, but pointing forward for a day of renewal still to come. And as we walk through our grief, may we, like the words of Isaiah, allow your glory to shine all over us. In Jesus’s name, amen.

The Way of Jesus - The Practice of Witness

This week’s devotional was written by J.D Walt and is entitled, The Difference Between Witnessing And Being A Witness. J.D Walk is the Executive Director and contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

MARK 1:43-45

Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

CONSIDER THIS

22. When a person experiences the work of the Holy Spirit, as this leper did, they will tell others about it. It’s that simple. No one has to tell them to spread the news. I am convinced human beings were created to spread good news.

It’s interesting how hard churches work to motivate people to “witness” to other people about their faith. They want us to tell others about Jesus, to lead others to Christ and so on. Don’t get me wrong. Those are great things, but we go about it in the wrong way. At the end of the day, all this activity adds up to is marketing.

You can’t talk people into being a witness. Really you can’t even teach or train them to be a witness. A witness actually has to witness something happening in order to be a witness. A witness is a witness by virtue of something they have experienced. Sure, we can get people to do marketing for Jesus, but that’s a far cry from actually being a witness to his work through the person and power of the Holy Spirit.

Not even Jesus could stop this leper from spreading the news about what happened. Our best “marketing” efforts can fill the seats of our sanctuaries, but getting people to talk freely and spread the news about Jesus—that only happens when the Holy Spirit does the work of Jesus within them.

23. Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses. . . .” I think he had in mind something of the scene in today’s text—the unstoppable sharing of the good news of the God who turns everything around. We live in a day when the gospel has been reduced to information about God that we should feel compelled to share with other people, and we call that evangelism. Real evangelism looks like witnesses telling stories in such a way that the people who hear them flock to the countryside in search of Jesus. Jesus can’t even get past crowd control to get into the building. Because of the witness to the Holy Spirit’s work in and through him, he can’t even get into the towns. People hate marketing for Jesus. They hunger for witnesses who will tell stories of what the Holy Spirit is doing through the people of God in the name of Jesus.

What if this actually happens better and more often on the outskirts of town, in the lonely places, than in our Sunday morning worship services? Just asking.

THE PRAYER

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. I want to witness your working in a fresh way in my life and in the lives of others. And I want to share the story of it with others. Even more, I want them to witness your life in me. Melt me. Mold me. Fill me. Use me. For the glory of your name, Jesus. Amen.

The Way of Jesus: The Practice of Community

 
 

Every so often, we will have a guest speaker at CrossView Church. We are so grateful for the gifted women and men who serve the Lord through teaching the word. This week we hear from Pastor Scott Rossiter. As one of CrossView’s online pastors, Pastor Scott hosts our online services and leads our online prayer group. To join our Thursday evening online prayer group, click here. To share a prayer request, click here.

Usually, when we have a guest speaker, we will not have a weekly devotional. We encourage you to watch the message again at some point throughout the week.

Blessings on you and your week.

Pastor Kyle

The Way of Jesus - The Practice of Service

This week’s devotional is entitled Understanding Service and was written by Richard Foster. Foster is a pastor, the founder of Renovaré, and the author of numerous books, including the spiritual formation classic Celebration of Discipline. We hope you are encouraged this week.

Service as a Christian spiritual discipline is difficult to capture in words. We learn about service best by watching it in action over an extended period of time. 

When we see someone intently listening to another human being, we are witnessing service in action. When we see a person holding the sorrows of another in tender, loving care, we are witnessing service in action. When we see someone actively guarding the reputation of others, we are witnessing service in action. When we see simple, everyday acts of kindness, we are witnessing service in action. It is in these actions and many more like them that we begin to get a picture of service. 

These tiny corners of life are the genuinely significant realities in the kingdom of God. There is no flash, no glitz, no titanic anything. Today’s celebrity culture, captive to its pretentious egoism, simply finds such realities hard to grasp. 

The towel and the basin are the icons of service. I am, of course, referring to the well-known story in John 13 where Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. In doing this he redefined for them — and for us — the meaning of greatness. After Jesus’s startling act, he says, ​“Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord— and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:12 – 15). 

Now, the specific act of washing feet has genuine punch because it was simply a continuation of the whole of Jesus’s life. From the hidden years in Nazareth to the self-sacrificing love of Calvary, all that Jesus was and did was a seamless robe of service. Do you remember that it was said of Messiah that he would not ​“break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick” (Matthew 12:20)? Jesus, you see, would never crush the needy; he would never snuff out the smallest hope. This is service in action. 

Of all the spiritual disciplines, service is the most conducive to the growth of the grace of humility within us. This is good news indeed, for we all know that humility is not one of those things that comes to us by trying to get humility. No, we must come at this most prized virtue through the indirect route of routine acts of service. 

William Law, in his classic work A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, urges us to make every day a day of humility. And how are we to do this? Law counsels, ​“Condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow creatures, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do the lowest offices to the lowest of mankind.”[1] You see, it is through simple, daily acts of service that the grace of humility will slip in on us unawares. The risen Christ beckons us to the ministry of service. Such a ministry, flowing out of the inner recesses of the heart, is life and joy and peace. 

Foster, Nathan. The Making of an Ordinary Saint: My Journey from Frustration to Joy with the Spiritual Disciplines. Baker Publishing Group.

For each chapter in Nathan’s book, Richard Foster writes an introductory essay — like this one from the chapter on Service.

[1] William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

The Way of Jesus: The Practice of Scripture

 
 

Every so often, we will have a guest speaker at CrossView Church. We are so grateful for the gifted women and men who serve the Lord through teaching the word. This week we hear from Pastor Nikki Rossiter. As one of CrossView’s online pastors, Pastor Nikki hosts our online services and leads our online prayer group. To join our Thursday evening online prayer group, click here. To share a prayer request, click here.

Usually, when we have a guest speaker, we will not have a weekly devotional. We encourage you to watch the message again at some point throughout the week.

Blessings on you and your week.

Pastor Kyle

The Way of Jesus - The Practice of Generosity

This week’s devotional was written by Dr. Gary Hoag and is entitled, Seven Lessons Learned From The Generosity Of Jesus. Dr. Hoag is a contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34

Big Idea: Jesus fulfills the Old Testament law and invites followers to take hold of life in His abundant economy by exhibiting loving generosity to God, neighbor, and the poor.

Good news! Jesus fulfilled the entire law for us and gave us a new commandment: love! How does that relate to our handling of finances? Jesus modeled the way for us and gave us instructions that make no sense according to the economy of this world. That’s because He wants us to grasp life in God’s economy.

So how are we to handle God’s resources? Everything changes under grace. Life is rooted in abundance rather than scarcity. God, not money, solves all our problems. The video for this lesson summarizes seven Gospel themes on money. Those who grasp life in Jesus receive the greatest gift of all—the Holy Spirit—who produces the fruit of generosity in faithful stewards.

1. The Gift of Life in the Kingdom

Jesus is the generous giver of abundant life and the riches of the kingdom for all who seek Him first. This is good news for all, especially the poor (see Matthew 6:25–34; Luke 4:18–21; John 10:10).

2. The Invitation to Depend on God’s Provision

Jesus instructs followers not to store up treasures on earth but to store them up in heaven. To live this way requires followers to depend on God for daily bread and everything else (see Matthew 6:9–13, 19–24).

3. The Instructions for Disciples Under Grace

Jesus never instructs disciples to tithe. He only mentions the tithe when cursing religious leaders for taking pride in tithing while failing to show justice, mercy, and faith. Conversely, He says to give to God what is God’s (which is everything) so the only giving He celebrates is sacrificial giving motivated by love for God and care for our neighbor and the poor (see Matthew 23:23; Mark 12:13–17, 41–44).

I do not believe one can settle on how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. (C. S. Lewis)

4. The Report of the first Christ Followers

Materialism, greed, and covetousness hinder people from bearing fruit. The life Jesus offers is one hundred times better than the false security that money can buy. No wonder His followers give freely to underwrite fruitful mission (see Mark 4:1–20; 10:13–31; Luke 8:1–3).

5. The Paradox of Generosity

The teachings of Jesus are paradoxical: in letting go, we receive, and in grasping, we lose. Jesus says that faithful stewards put God’s resources to work and are rich toward God, rather than holding them in fear as slaves to mammon (see Matthew 25:14–30; Luke 12:13–21; 16:1–13).

Our hearts have room for only one all-embracing devotion, and we can only cleave to one Lord. Every competitor to that devotion must be hated. As Jesus says, there is no alternative—either we love God or we hate him. We are confronted by an “either-or”; either we love God, or we love earthly goods. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

6. The Assessment Paradigm of Jesus

Jesus instructs disciples to handle money differently from the world and to care for those that society deems not worthy of care. In so doing, disciples live out the gospel, show their true faith, and gain heavenly reward (see Matthew 25:31–46; Luke 12:32–34).

7. The Promise of the Holy Spirit

Jesus promised His disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit—the greatest treasure. This gift is for all who believe (see John 14:15–17).

The Way of Jesus - The Practice of Fasting

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, On Feasting, Fasting, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. J.D Walt is the Executive Director of seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

2 PETER 1:3–4 

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

CONSIDER THIS

Let’s remember yet again our working definition of prayer and fasting:

Prayer and fasting is the lifelong process of becoming a peculiar kind of person (i.e., a righteous person) who learns to exercise a particular kind of power (i.e., the supernatural love of God) for the good of the world and the glory of God. 

I like how Peter describes such a life as “participating in the divine nature.” The English Standard Version of the Bible translates it as being “partakers of the divine nature.” The Greek term behind the translation is koinonos. You may recognize the connection to koinonia. It means fellowship. It is a word the New Testament uses to describe the presence and effect of the Holy Spirit in a human community. Fasting is one of the primary means of living and moving and having our being in this fellowship. Remember again Jesus’s word about how his way of fasting differed from the Pharisees and the disciples of John. 

Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” (Luke 5:34–35)

Fasting is about feasting on friendship with Jesus through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and all this leads to as his agent in the world. Remember again Jesus’s word about his food.

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” . . . 

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. (John 4:32, 34)

A few years back I found myself at Jacob’s Well with Jesus and his disciples. Upon hearing these words again I said to him, “Jesus, I don’t know about this food either. I want to know about this food.” I want to go to the place where my food is to do the will of God. I want to come to this place of appetite displacement; where my experience of doing the will of God displaces my hunger for food. I want to learn to do the will of God in the way of God such that it actually nourishes my physical body. 

Sure, I enjoy food, but I don’t revolve my life around food like I did before. I used to think fasting was about changing my relationship with food. I am learning that fasting—in what I believe is the way of Jesus and the friends of the bridegroom—is about changing my relationship with hunger. I am finding hunger is changing my relationship with God. Fasting in this way means carrying hunger in love for Jesus and those he loves. It means befriending hunger. I have primarily understood hunger as a problem to be solved; as a craving to be satiated. I am coming to understand hunger as the gifted path to the deeper presence of Jesus; as the activation of the new wineskin, the awakening of the temple of the human body, the primary sanctuary of the Holy Spirit—the new wine of the kingdom.

Here’s what else I’m learning. Our human bodies were not made to be sated with food. They were meant to be sustained by food. Because of my anemic practice of fasting, I had a wrong understanding of feasting. Feasting is a biblical dimension of Sabbath keeping. It is one day a week in which we can live to eat. Fasting is the way of life for the other six days when we eat to live. Because my prior practice of fasting was underdeveloped, my practice of feasting was an expression of overindulgence. An almost constant focus during the six days was what or where am I going to eat next. Any notion of a feast became about eating more than usual. 

The human body and particularly what the Bible calls our “inmost being” is a finely tuned instrument designed to commune with and carry the very presence of God, to bear witness to the holy love of God which becomes manifest through demonstrations of his power in the manifold expressions of his inbreaking kingdom. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. This prayer, when uttered in the context of a fasted lifestyle, ever increasingly opens the way to the supernatural life of a human being who is fully participating in the divine nature.

THE PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

Lord Jesus, teach us to pray and fast and so fellowship with you as participants and partakers of your very nature—which is righteousness itself. To that end, . . . 

I receive your righteousness and release my sinfulness.
I receive your wholeness and release my brokenness.
I receive your fullness and release my emptiness.
I receive your peace and release my anxiety.
I receive your joy and release my despair.
I receive your healing and release my sickness. 
I receive your love and release my selfishness. 

Come, Holy Spirit, transform my heart, mind, soul, and strength so that my consecration becomes your demonstration; that our lives become your sanctuary. For the glory of God our Father, amen.

The Way of Jesus - The Practice of Solitude

This week’s devotional is entitled Open Spaces for Solitude and was written by Margaret Campbell. Campbell serves on the Ministry Team and Board at Renovaré. We hope you are encouraged this week.

Throughout the life of the church the great leaders in the faith have commended silence and solitude as necessary for making progress in the spiritual life.

During the Renovaré regional conferences Richard Foster taught,

Prayer is the most central of the disciplines of engagement, the via positiva. Solitude is the most central of the disciplines of abstinence. The reason is simple: Solitude makes the spiritual life possible because in it we are freed from the bondage to people and our inner compulsions, and we are freed to love God and know compassion for others.

The 15th century priest Thomas à Kempis encouraged this spiritual practice in The Imitation of Christ:

In quiet and silence the faithful soul makes progress, the hidden meanings of the Scriptures become clear, and the eyes weep with devotion every night. Even as one learns to grow still, one draws closer to the Creator and farther from the hurly-burly of the World.

And Henri Nouwen wrote,

Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Solitude begins with a time and place for God, and for him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but also that he is actively present in our lives — healing, teaching, and guiding — we need to set aside a time and space to give him our undivided attention.

From each of these teachers, I hear words of invitation. Freed to love God and know compassion for others… one draws closer to the Creator… He is actively present… give Him our undivided attention. Truly these are words of invitation and comfort. Still there are barriers that prevent many of us from accepting the invitation to simply do what the Psalmist invites us to do: Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10).

Barriers to Engaging in Solitude

One barrier is an incomplete understanding of the discipline. Dallas Willard writes that solitude is ​“the creation of an open, empty space in our lives by purposefully abstaining from the interaction with other human beings, so that, freed from competing loyalties, we can be found by God.”

We can begin by creating an open, empty space on our calendar.

I found one of these wide open spaces by accident. I was traveling through the college town where my son lived. He asked if I would join him for breakfast before his first class on the day of my departure. Yes, of course. It was easy to delay my drive for an hour to spend time with my son. He called just as I arrived at the pancake house. He overslept so he asked if I would delay my drive by another few hours so we could have breakfast after his class. Yes, of course.

A small park was nearby so I went to wait and found a beautiful rose garden. The roses were in bloom and fresh with the morning dew. I saw a little sienna brown chipmunk darting from bush to bush. Chipmunks are shy little animals so every time I would catch a glimpse of the creature it would run away and hide. Finally, I sat down on a bench. A few minutes later I heard God say to me, ​“If you want to see the chipmunk you need to be very still and quiet and wait.” I sat very still and quiet. The chipmunk came out of hiding and sat on the path right in front of me. He just sat there.

God was teaching me. I understood that he wanted me to learn to be still and wait and watch for Him. The words of that old hymn came to mind: And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own; and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

A second barrier is the distraction around us and the many competing thoughts that run through our minds like a swarm of bees. Like any spiritual discipline we learn by practicing. We begin by finding a quiet place that is as free from distractions as it can be. We notice how we respond. It may be that learning a short breath prayer will help us return to a loving attentiveness toward God. My prayer is simply, Father. In time you will find one that is right for you. I encourage you to experiment. Sustained practice will help us understand what Teresa of Ávila means when she wrote, ​“Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself.”

In his article, Richard Foster addresses the third barrier to practicing solitude: fear. The fear of becoming unimportant, unneeded, insignificant, useless. He teaches us how to overcome the fear and why we should set it aside. We learn to release our little ​“to do list” of good things that need attention. We learn to be still and seek God with our whole heart. We find little silences and solitudes all through an ordinary day.

It is in this way that, in the words of St. Paul,

We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand — out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory. —Romans 5:1 MSG

Let’s throw open our doors to God through giving him our undivided attention. Let’s delay for an hour or two something that seems urgent so that we can learn to be present to God — fully present. Perhaps you can select two or three of the suggested venues for silence and solitude and just give it a try.

Wide Open Spaces was originally published in Perspective, April 1997.

The Way of Jesus - The Practice of Sabbath

This week’s devotional was written by Dr. Timothy Tennent and is entitled The Fourth Commandment: Remember The Sabbath And Keep It Holy. Dr. Tennet is a contributing author to Seedbed.com and most recently served as the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. We hope you are encouraged this week.

The Sabbath Day does not begin with the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:7), but is interwoven into the very fabric of creation itself. At the very dawn of creation, God established the Sabbath. In fact, it is the creation account in Genesis that defines our week—six days of creation, and the seventh the Sabbath day. The seven-day week does not come from the natural order (as do the month and the year), but emerges out of the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2.

The Bible teaches that God is the author of all creation. We are not given exact details on the process or timing, but we know that God is the author of all creation, and that the creation account is organized around a seven-day week. In the first six days God created the entire world, and on the seventh day God rested.

The word for “rest” used in Genesis 2:2 is where we get our word sabbath. It means “to cease,” or “to rest.” The use of the word “rest” could not possibly mean that God was exhausted after creating the world. It is impossible for God to be tired or to need rest. The whole of creation emerges through His creative, spoken word and does not tax the infinite energy or resources of the Divine Majesty! Rather, the word is used to indicate that God “ceased” from His labors that He might dwell on and enjoy a creation of His own making that He has called “very good” (Gen. 1:31).

Unlike the other six days of creation, which all came to an end, the seventh day was not meant to end. All of creation was meant to live in the ongoing “Sabbath” of God. It was the entrance of sin into the world, through the disobedience of Adam, that brought the Sabbath to an end. The Sabbath was not so much a day as a condition—a time to cease and to celebrate God’s rule. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s rule and reign, they broke the Sabbath because they shattered the ongoing celebration of God’s rule, which was meant to be the undergirding foundation of the productivity that came forth from the Garden of Eden.

With this background in mind, we are better able to look at the fourth commandment. I have already pointed out that the Ten Commandments are found in two places in the Old Testament. There are only minor variations in the two versions, but one of the differences relating to the fourth commandment is worth noting. The actual wording of the fourth commandment is identical in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but the reason given for the commandment is different. In Exodus 20 the Sabbath is rooted back into the creation account and, therefore, is meant as God’s gift to the whole human race, both believers and unbelievers. It is part of God’s design that all people have a healthy rhythm of work and rest in life. In contrast, Deuteronomy 5 roots the Sabbath legislation into a specific response to Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery. This reflection will focus on what the Sabbath specifically means for us as Christians, though an equal treatment could be given for Sabbath as a general gift to all people everywhere.

There are three important points about the Sabbath that are significant for Christians to hear from this text. First, the Sabbath is not just about our not doing something. It is not simply about inactivity. That is the problem Jesus encountered with the Pharisees in the New Testament who had made the Sabbath into a legalism of “not doing.” Instead, the fourth commandment calls us to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Moses was not establishing something new, but rather calling us to remember what once was. It is a weekly reminder that the world today is not as it should be, that we have all been broken by the Fall. We long for the day when God’s Sabbath reign will be reestablished in the New Creation at the end of time (Rev. 21–22). We honor the Sabbath and keep it holy by remembering what the world was like before we shattered it through sin. We cease from our labors so that we can remember why we work the other six days and recognize that the most important things that happen in our lives are the things that happen through God’s work.

Second, the Sabbath is our weekly opportunity to break our trust in work. Jesus had conflict with the Pharisees because they had turned their inactivity on the Sabbath into another form of “work” so that they could establish their own self-righteousness. Jesus makes it clear that the Sabbath is not an obligation that we grudgingly undertake to make God happy. The Sabbath rest is God’s gift to us. This is why Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). We’ve turned the Sabbath into a law of inactivity. It is vital that we cease from our labors every week, but that ceasing in and of itself is not what constitutes Sabbath. Rather, it is a day to quit trusting in our works and allow God to work.

The reason we cease from our labors one day of the week is because we need to take time to remember. It is a weekly reminder of our dependence on God. For most of us, our work gives us three things: our self-worth, our sustenance, and our sense of independence. The Sabbath reminds us that our self-worth comes first and foremost from God, that He is our Provider and Sustainer, and that we are totally dependent upon Him. Breaking our weekly trust in work actually enables us to work better and more effectively the other six days because it is now kept in the proper perspective.

Third, the Sabbath is a celebration of the resurrection and the future reestablishment of the Sabbath. In the Old Testament, the fourth commandment looked backwards at the original creation and how God ceased His work on the seventh day. In the New Testament, the Christians wisely shifted the focus from the seventh day to the first day of the week, which was the day of the resurrection of Christ. By doing this, they were looking forward to Christ’s second coming and the New Creation, when the Sabbath reign of God will be reestablished.

We no longer look back and remember what should have been; instead, we look forward and eagerly await the new heavens and the new earth. In Christ, we see the in-breaking of these future realities and a foretaste of the health and wholeness and full reign of the kingdom that is to come. Dedicating a day once per week for worship, rest, reflection, and renewal is but a tiny foretaste of the final Sabbath rest that will be reinstituted once Christ has returned and sin has been banished. All of life will be “Sabbath,” not a ceasing from work, but work without drudgery, and in the complete absence of sin, in the fullness of God’s fruitful design.