The Book of Acts: Boldness in the Gospel

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, How The Church Becomes The Church Again. J.D. is the Executive Director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.

ACTS 4:23–31 (NIV)

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

“‘Why do the nations rage
       and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
      and the rulers band together
against the Lord
      and against his anointed one.’

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

CONSIDER THIS

There’s a new kid on the block now; a character we have never known in all of the story of God. The new actor has a name: “The Church.” Let’s remember our working definition of The Church: “The presence of Jesus in the people of God for the sake of the world.” 

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 

I want us to notice how “The Church” responded to Peter and John and their reporting on how they had been handled by the “Religious Establishment,” aka the temple, aka the Sanhedrin. 

When they heard this . . . 

They got angry?
They empathized and consoled Peter and John?
They pouted?
They established a task force and set up a series of meetings?
They started plotting about how to solve the problem? 
They hired a consultant? 
They called an executive session?

No, No, No, No, No, No, No. Behold what they did do:

They raised their voices together in prayer to God . . .  

There is a saying I heard many years ago when I first began in ministry. While I have not always heeded it I have never forgotten it:

“You can do more than pray after you have prayed. But you will never do more than pray until you have prayed.”

As we began our work with Seedbed we reframed that saying into a new one—Prayer is not the only thing we do but it is the first thing.

We see this powerfully at work in the early days of the church.

When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.

Prayer was not the only thing they did but it was the first thing. Because they knew they could do more than pray after they prayed but they knew they would never do more than pray until they prayed.

Let’s go back to chapter 1 and remember what preceded the day of Pentecost.

They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. Acts 1:14

Prayer was not just something these early Christians did. It was who they were. Look at how Luke describes them following the day of Pentecost:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:42

Prayer was not the only thing they did but it was the first thing. Because they knew they could do more than pray after they prayed but they knew they would do nothing more than pray until they prayed.

I’ve been having a disturbing thought of late. It is this: What if the house of God (i.e., what we think of as the church) is only actually the house of God (aka the church) to the extent it is a house of prayer? Remember this?

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.  “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” Matthew 21:12–13. 

Consider what happened to the place formerly known as “the house of God” aka the temple. Now, let me ask again: What if the house of God (i.e., what we think of as the church) is only actually the house of God (aka the church) to the extent it is a house of prayer?

What if to the extent we are not a house of Prayer we are actually a den of robbers? 

What if the church could become the church again? What if it is as simple as reclaiming our identity as a house of prayer? 

How might that begin with you and me? 

THE PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

Lord Jesus, I am your witness. 

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 QUESTION

So what if my what ifs are on point? What are the implications? What might repentance look like? How might I own responsibility? What would it take to become a house of prayer again? 

The Book of Acts: It's All Jesus

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, The Acts Of Jesus Continued. J.D. is the Executive Director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.

CONSIDER THIS

Acts chapter 3 is the big moment. It is the ultimate test. We know it would be no problem for Jesus to do this miracle. We saw him do it before. We also have it on good evidence Peter and John participated in miracles during their pre-crucifixion discipleship training period with Jesus. If we transport ourselves back to what I call the day after the day of Pentecost, we must locate ourselves in the place of not knowing what is going to happen. Here’s the test: Would the apostles be able to do the work of Jesus in the way of Jesus in the absence of Jesus being physically present? 

And even as I write this last sentence, the mind-bending epiphany hits me. It’s one of those moments when I feel like I finally, or at least more fully, actually believe what I believe. Look at that question again. 

Here’s the test: Would the apostles be able to do the work of Jesus in the way of Jesus in the absence of Jesus being physically present? There’s the problem . . . “the absence of Jesus being physically present.” That’s precisely wrong. Jesus is actually physically present. Remember our biblical cosmology meets physics class conversation the other day about the ascension of Jesus? Jesus did not move from the visible realm to the invisible realm. He moved from the seen realm of the earth to the unseen realm of the heavens. Just as he was physically raised from the dead, he physically ascended into heaven. Remember, a Jewish carpenter sits at the right hand of the throne of God in the heavens and rules the cosmos. 

Here’s the epiphany: By the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the unseen albeit physical presence of Jesus is made physically present in the actual bodies of his agents—on this occasion Peter and John. Because of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is physically present and active in the physical and active presence of his followers. Remember our working definition of the church—the presence of Jesus in the people of God for the sake of the world.

This is not a warm and fuzzy “spiritual” experience kind of thing. Otherwise, why did the Son of God tell us to eat bread and drink wine as though it were his body and blood? And here we envisage the full and true theology of the Eucharist, instituted in the upper room—not in a doctrine of transubstantiation wherein the physical properties of bread and wine turn into literal flesh and blood—but as the sacrament of kingdom transformation enacting the real and physical presence of the body of Jesus inhabiting the real and physical bodies of his followers turned agents. It’s not the bread and the wine that are transformed. It’s the people! 

Back to our question: Would the apostles be able to do the work of Jesus in the way of Jesus in the absence of Jesus being physically present? 

The answer, as we will see this week, is no. The apostles will not be able to do the work of Jesus in the way of Jesus in the absence of Jesus being physically present. Jesus is not physically absent. Because Jesus is physically present in and through the physical bodies of the apostles, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus will be able to do the work of Jesus in the way of Jesus through the apostles. The whole notion and imagery of the church as the body of Christ is not a neat metaphor. It is a quite literal and physical reality. 

I know. I know. This is a lot. I feel some of you getting frustrated. But aren’t you tired of benign theology? Aren’t you weary of going through the motions? Don’t you want to know and deeply understand what the Bible is actually saying? What if this is part of why we aren’t “getting” it? Aren’t you ready to see Acts chapter 3 come to life in your life and in our time? Aren’t you ready to do the things Jesus did and even greater things than these because he has gone to the Father? Friends, this is not a once upon a time story; nor is it a one-off occurrence reserved for the first-century church. This is the right here, right now reality of the New Testament church. We’ve just been in an incredibly long period of hibernation. This is why it is said,

Wake up sleeper! Rise from the dead! And Christ will shine on you! 

THE PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

Lord Jesus, I am your witness. 

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 QUESTION

Are you seeing the difference between the wispy sense of Jesus being spirituallypresent among us versus Jesus being physically present in our actual physical bodies? In other words, Jesus is not invisibly present in the air or next to us on the couch. He is physically present in our physical bodies. Are you seeing the myriad implications of this for our actual physical bodies as a living sacrifice? 

The Book of Acts: Salvation for All

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, When the Holy Spirit Does Something Not In The Bulletin. J.D. is the Executive Director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.

ACTS 2:14–21 (NIV)

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“‘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.

Even on my servants, both men and women,

I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

and they will prophesy.

I will show wonders in the heavens above

and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and billows of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

And everyone who calls

on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

CONSIDER THIS

Our movement, (aka the church Jesus is building,) began with phenomenology: tornadic sounding winds, tongues of fire descending on people, men and women speaking in foreign languages they could not themselves understand. This was not a pre-scripted ceremony as one might expect at say, a Passover celebration. This was live reality television. Things were happening that were not in the bulletin. The Holy Spirit did not come with an announcement of his arrival. He just arrived.

Note the two very divergent responses from those present.

1. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

2. Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

As it was then, so it is now. When the boundaries of one’s experience with God are stretched, it reveals two basic responses: self-abandonment or self-protection. The former marvels in stunned awe. The latter mocks with sarcastic antagonism.

To be sure, much of what gets passed off as Holy Spirit phenomenology these days may be dramatic expressions of human personality, but how we respond says much more about us than it does about them.

Years ago when I was in seminary a traveling revival descended upon our town. They had come from a Vineyard church called the Toronto Airport Fellowship in Canada. Never before or since have I witnessed the kinds of apparently supernatural phenomenology occurring in those meetings. Fireworks abounded, but so did miracles. And yes, it split our community into two groups; those who marveled and those who mocked. It always does.

At one of the evening services I approached one of my seminary professors and asked his take on what was unfolding. I will always remember his response. In a spirit of awed humility he said, “J.D., there’s a lot happening here that is clearly of the Spirit, and yes, there are some things happening that are clearly being driven by human personality. Don’t be afraid of this. Lean into it with discernment.”

Let me close today with a few simple rules of engagement when it comes to spiritual phenomenology outside our comfort zone.

1. Never make fun, belittle, or mock another’s experience of the Holy Spirit.

2. Resist the compulsion to be a spiritual thrill seeker. I call them storm chasers. (Oops! I think I just broke rule #1.)

3. Suspend your initial need to make a snap judgment, lean into the possibilities, and instead ask the question of true spiritual discernment, “What does this mean?”

4. Live a scripture-saturated life. Everything always comes back to the governing story of our lives. We will say more tomorrow, but that is exactly what Peter is doing here with his recounting of the prophecy of Joel. 

THE PRAYER

Lord Jesus, I am your witness. 

I receive your righteousness and release my sin. 
I receive your wholeness and release my brokenness.
I receive your fullness and release my emptiness.
I receive your creativity and release my chaos.
I receive your healing and release my sickness. 
I receive your joy and release my despair.
I receive your rest and release my striving. 

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

THE QUESTION

When it comes to the phenomena surrounding the Holy Spirit do you tend to be one who responds with abandonment and awe or with skepticism or suspicion or even cynicism and sarcasm? What is it about you that makes you respond in this way? Remember any such encounters in your Wake-Up Call Journal. 

The Book of Acts: A Hurricane of the Spirit

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, Don’t Pray for Wind. Set the Sales. J.D. is the Executive Director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.

ACTS 2:1-4 (NIV)

When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

CONSIDER THIS

On the the Day of Pentecost, the heretofore impenetrable seam between the Heavens and the Earth collapsed and the realms became a seamless reality. This was not a dissolving of the Heavens into the Earth but rather an interpolation of the realms into a seamless reality. 

How do we know these things? We see it all in the biblical text. This was not a quiet, subjective, spiritual happening later adherents could have embellished and later mythologized. This is eyewitness-based, attested history. Acts 2:2-4 and following are not an interpretation of events by later observers and analysts, but a dynamically unfolding account of the ground zero event of the birth of the Church Jesus is building. 

The collapse of the seam between Heaven and Earth was sonically demonstrative. 

2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

The collapse of the seam between Heaven and Earth was a visually demonstrative. 

3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

The collapse of the seam between Heaven and Earth was transcendently demonstrative, with Divine personhood entering into human personages.

4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit

The collapse of the seam between Heaven and Earth was linguistically, ethnically, and culturally demonstrative.

and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

On this day, an exponentially multiplicative movement launched into the world and for three hundred years astoundingly turned the mighty Roman Empire upside down. The prayer of Jesus—”Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” unfolded in myriad fulfillment from the mundane to the miraculous. There was both sudden fulfillment accompanied by long “patient ferment,” to borrow Alan Kreider’s poignant phrase. It is an oversimplification to be sure, but then came Constantine and later Christendom and Roman Catholicism, a massive split, a mighty Reformation resulting in twenty something thousand splinter movements (aka denominations), a series of great awakenings and lesser revivals and here we are. 

We stand in the ruins of the still collapsing facade of Christendom. And all our churches are like so many blind people standing around a massive elephant each with our hand on a different part of the animal and each proffering and preferring a different diagnosis, prognosis and plan. 

So what’s the point today? The point is to say the Day of Pentecost never ended. We need not return to the first century church but to restore the 21st century church. This will come by Word and Spirit and the recovery of plain Scriptural Christianity. We must cease fiddling with forms and fads. We must find each other again, not as so many churches but as “Church.” We must cease chasing after phenomenology and begin to run after Jesus on the path of the race marked out for us. 

We must meet one another again at the level ground of the foot of the Cross and awaken to the fact the Heavens have been rended once and for all. Jesus is ascended as Lord and King. The Spirit is outpouring in unceasing abundance. We don’t need the Lord to somehow do Pentecost again. We need to awaken to the fact that he is now doing it. He never stopped. The Wind of Heaven is blowing. It is time to reset the sails. We have enough songs and books and bible studies for the next hundred years. We are the most resourced Christians in the history of the Church. It is time now for a great awakening of bold love and courageous faith. 

It’s time to stop asking for the Wind. It’s time to set the sails. 

Still Day One.

THE PRAYER

God our Father, who with your son Jesus Messiah, fills us with the Holy Spirit, thank you for the miracle and the mystery of Pentecost. Reset our sails to catch the Wind of Heaven that never stopped blowing. Awaken us to Jesus, the Lord of the Church, to the Word and Spirit. Lead us to find one another at the lower ground of the Cross and to open our hearts to one another like never before. Come Holy Spirit, bring us great awakening to who you are and what you are doing in our day. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

THE QUESTION

Do you sense faith, hope and love rising up in you? How might the sails need to be adjusted to catch the fresh wind? 

The Book of Acts: An Important Transition

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, You Had One Job… J.D. is the Executive Director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.

WORD

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Acts 1:6–11 (NIV)

CONSIDER THIS

If I'm honest, and you know I try to be, I mostly want God to fix the broken things in my life. I want Jesus to heal me inside and out. I want him to restore to me—borrowing the prophet Joel's imagery—the years the locusts have eaten. I want him to provide good opportunities for my children and good health for my parents. I need him to provide for my needs and some of my wants. I need more margin between the end of the month and the end of the money. Consequently, those are my prayers. And I pray such things for others. In short, I want him to restore the kingdom to me and those I love. What could be wrong with that? 

I'll give those emerging apostles credit. They thought bigger:

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

On my better days, my prayers hold similar aspirations. I pray for great awakening in my church and town; in my state and nation. I want Jesus to slay mental illness, desecrate poverty, restore deep-hearted love in people, bring multitudes of people into deep wholeness and otherwise save us from this present darkness. I want Jesus to "restore the kingdom to America," or at least start there. What could be wrong with that? 

Those aren't wrong prayers or aspirations. Those are just my and maybe your agenda items for today and the way ahead. Jesus, however, is chiefly concerned about one thing—one primary act. 

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus wants me and you, and us together, to be completely changed into fire.

You will be my witnesses . . . that's what it means—to become illuminated with a life so transcendently powerful and a love so transformationally potent that we lose sight of our agendas and become caught up in and carried by the Holy Spirit into the very acts of Jesus—on earth as it is in heaven. This is not aspirational, philosophical, or theoretical. This is the real life for which we were made. All these things, our health maintenance and wealth management (or lack thereof) and the problems of our parents and our children, and mental illness and crime and poverty and gun violence and all the things that consume our daily lives—it is as if he is saying, I can handle all of these things if you will just do your one job: Be my witnesses. 

Earlier he put it this way: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33).

Here's what we don't want to hear him say one day: "You had one job." 

PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

Abba Father! Lord Jesus! Holy Spirit! 

We are so caught up in so many things. We, like our sister Martha, are worried and upset and anxious about so many things in our lives and world. Lead us to this transformational life of the only necessary thing—our one job–becoming your witnesses. I am weary of being my own witness; of witnessing to you and anyone else who will listen of all my concerns and agendas. I desire the transformation that comes from your life in me which becomes your witness through me. I want to be caught up in you, Jesus, and carried along by your Spirit, who alone can handle all these things. Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the power. Yours is the glory. Praying in Jesus's name, amen. 

QUESTIONS

  • Can I get a witness? Or is it just me? Are you seeing the difference between you being your own witness and you becoming Jesus's witness? Are you seeing the difference between you "witnessing" about Jesus and Jesus witnessing through you?

Summer Psalms 2023 - Psalm 139

This weeks devotional is entitled, His Intimate Knowledge of Us: Psalm 139, and is written by Dr. Timothy Tennent. Dr. Tennent serves as the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

CONSIDER THIS

In this psalm, David celebrates God’s intimate ­knowledge of us. The opening phrase “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me” summarizes the entire psalm. He knows us when we rise in the morning; he knows us when we go about our daily activities; he knows us when we lie down at night. There is no place to hide from his presence. He is in heaven. He is even with us when we are in the depths of Sheol (the place of the dead). Even if we move and settle on the other side of the world, “even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (v. 10). He even knew us before we were born, knitting us together in our mother’s womb. This psalm is the inspiration for those familiar words in the liturgy known as the Collect for Purity, dating back to the eleventh century: “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid . . .”
We live in a time when life is regarded as a personal commodity. We are told that we are the masters of our own lives and have autonomy over the direction of our lives. This is not the worldview of the Psalms. God’s eyes saw our unformed bodies in the womb (v. 16). Even before we draw our first breath, he has already ordained the very number of days we will live (v. 16). Our lives from inception to the grave belong to him. He alone sets the path of our lives and directs us according to his gracious plan. The fact that we are his creation means that there are certain moral boundaries to the decisions we make regarding our lives. When we feel overwhelmed and think our life is going all wrong, we must remember that he knows so much more than we do: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand” (vv. 17–18). Life is not a random sequence of days determined simply by chance or even by the feeble choices we make. Ultimately, our lives are in his hands.

When we reflect on God’s intimate knowledge of us, it should bring us both comfort and disruption. On the one hand, it is comforting to know that God knows everything about us, including all our sins, fears, cowardice, and just plain kookiness, and yet still loves us everlastingly. On the other hand, it is disquieting, to say the least, that he knows everything about us, including every inner thought, every impure motive, every jealousy, and so on. This psalm even goes so far as to say that he not only “perceive[s] [our] thoughts” but even “before a word is on [our] tongue[s],” he knows it “completely” (vv. 2, 4). When this psalmist asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7) it is both comforting (God is always with me and will never forsake me) and terrifying (I cannot hide from him; his eyes are always upon me).

At times, all of us resist this great truth and want to maintain control of our own lives. We want to determine our own destiny and do it our way. Alternatively, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we can hide from God. When this happens, we should turn to the concluding prayer of this psalm: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (vv. 23–24).

Before we leave this remarkable psalm, we should clarify two rather disturbing verses that appear just before this final prayer. David says, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies” (vv. 21–22). These verses are not about any personal vendetta that David has against his enemies. Rather, he is zealous for the preservation of the glory of God and this is expressed by the word “hatred”—which, as we have noted earlier, means his “standing against” all those who plot and scheme against the rule and reign of God in the world. The New Testament will, of course, redirect this zeal by showing the even greater power of love. In the end, God’s foes are defeated, not through an exercise of power and righteous vehemence, but through kindness, love, and prayer. Jesus’ admonition for us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44) is, remarkably, not the cancellation or erasure of David’s prayer. Rather, it is the fulfillment of it. It was through Jesus’ own sacrifice, bearing the curses that were deservedly cast upon the wicked, that a “new and living way” is opened up (Heb. 10:20). The way of love is an even more powerful way of standing against evil. The zeal of David in these closing verses is not cancelled by the New Testament, but we are shown a “more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31 ESV) in how that zeal interfaces with those who defy God’s rule.

Summer Psalms 2023 - Psalm 97

This weeks devotional is entitled, God Has Walked Among Us - Psalm 97, and is written by Dr. Timothy Tennent. Dr. Tennent serves as the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

PSALM 97 (NIV)

1 The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad;
    let the distant shores rejoice.
2 Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
    righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 Fire goes before him
    and consumes his foes on every side.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
    the earth sees and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
    before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
    and all peoples see his glory.

7 All who worship images are put to shame,
    those who boast in idols—
    worship him, all you gods!

8 Zion hears and rejoices
    and the villages of Judah are glad
    because of your judgments, Lord.
9 For you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth;
    you are exalted far above all gods.
10 Let those who love the Lord hate evil,
    for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
    and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
11 Light shines on the righteous
    and joy on the upright in heart.
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous,
    and praise his holy name.

CONSIDER THIS

One of the great doctrines of the Christian faith is the doctrine of the incarnation, Jesus Christ stepping into human history and dwelling among us. The word incarnation means “in the flesh.” It reflects the great truth that God is not simply enthroned in the heavens, but that he has walked among us, full of grace and truth (John 1:17). This psalm recalls the time when God’s presence descended on Mount Sinai. He was surrounded by “clouds and thick darkness” (v. 2). Fire and smoke went up all around him (v. 3) and the “mountains melt[ed] like wax before the Lord” (v. 5; compare the description in Exodus 19:16–19).

The incarnation on that first Christmas wasn’t like this. God came among us in humility, and unlike the tumultuous time on Mount Sinai, we could see him face-to-face. This psalm prepares us for Christ’s second advent, which the New Testament describes with similar language to Psalm 97: “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels” (2 Thess. 1:7). His first advent was in weakness; his second will be in power. His first advent came in the stillness of a star-filled night; his second will come in a blaze of glory. His first advent was seen by only a few shepherds, but at his second, “every eye will see him” (Rev. 1:7). When he returns, as this psalm declares, all will “see his glory” (Ps. 97:6) and “all who worship images [will be] put to shame” (v. 7).

Summer Psalms 2023 - Psalm 16

This weeks devotional is entitled, His Holy One Did Not See Decay! (Psalm 16), and is written by Dr. Timothy Tennent. Dr. Tennent serves as the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

PSALM 16 (NIV)

Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.

I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”
I say of the holy people who are in the land,
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their names on my lips.

LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

CONSIDER THIS

The psalms have always been the prayer book for the people of God. It is, therefore, no surprise that the Book of Psalms is the most quoted book in the New Testament. The psalms not only give voice to the prayers and meditations of God’s people, but they connect us to the whole of biblical revelation. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the first recorded public proclamation of the gospel occurs in Acts chapter 2 when Peter, standing with the other Apostles, addresses the crowd. Only a few weeks earlier, they were in fear behind locked doors. Now, they are publicly declaring the resurrection of Jesus.

In his sermon, Peter quotes Psalm 16:8-11 which gives the promise that God will not “abandon me to the grave” and “you will not let your Holy One see decay.” Peter declares that if the psalm was only referring to a promise made to David, then why were David’s bones in decay and the place of his tomb so well known? (Acts 2:25-32). The answer is that the psalm was speaking prophetically about Jesus Christ who never suffered decay but was raised from the dead on the third day! He is the Risen Lord! He is the “first fruit” of the general resurrection which will someday come to us all.

Because Jesus Christ is risen, not only is his death on the cross vindicated as God’s plan of salvation, but we have the assurance that, in the end, we will also be resurrected from death. Christ’s death and resurrection is what has made known “the path of life” (vs. 11). It is the empty tomb which finally fulfills this psalm, granting us joy in his presence and eternal pleasures at his right hand where Jesus Christ is seated in glory. This is why the entire gospel is summarized in what is known as the great Paschal greeting: “Christ is Risen!” (with the reply) “He is Risen Indeed!”

Summer Psalms 2023 - Psalm 63

This weeks devotional is entitled, Remembering, Even In The Dark: Psalm 63, and is written by Dr. Timothy Tennent. Dr. Tennent serves as the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

PSALM 63 (NIV)

1 You, God, are my God,
    earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.

2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
    and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
    my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
    and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
    with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

6 On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
    I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
    your right hand upholds me.

9 Those who want to kill me will be destroyed;
    they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword
    and become food for jackals.

11 But the king will rejoice in God;
    all who swear by God will glory in him,
    while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

—

Sing this psalm with the Seedbed Psalter today! Visit the resource here.

CONSIDER THIS

A wise person once said that we should never forget in the days of darkness what we have learned in the days of light. This is the lesson of Psalm 63. This psalm was written in one of the most difficult periods of David’s life. David is in exile in the desert. He is in a desert, both physically and spiritually. He has fled from Jerusalem. He cannot experience God’s presence in the temple. The ark of the covenant has been left behind. When David declares that he is in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” (v. 1), it is a statement as much about his spiritual condition as it is his physical one. Yet, in the midst of this difficult time, David remembers God’s faithfulness in the past: “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory” (v. 2). Spiritual amnesia is one of the great problems that beset us during times of trial. We forget God’s past faithfulness. In contrast, David teaches us to remember, to call out upon him even “through the watches of the night” (v. 6), knowing that the same God who was with us in the light will guide us in the days of darkness and trial

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Summer Psalms

This week’s devotional is entitled, What Does The Holy Spirit Do For The Church? and is written by Matt Ayars. Matt Ayars is the author of The Holy Spirit: An Introduction and is a contributing author at Seedbed.com. We hope this devotional encourages your faith.

Many Christians tend to be relatively familiar with what the Holy Spirit does for each individual believer when it comes to applying the work of Christ in our lives (for example, his regenerating and sanctifying work).

But what does the Holy Spirit do for the collective church as a whole? Among many things, the Holy Spirit nourishes the church (Jn. 7:37-39), comforts the church (Jn. 14:25-27), and empowers the church for ministry (Rom. 12).

Above and beyond all of these things, however, the Holy Spirit unites the Church to Christ, and therefore brings the church into the inner life of the Holy Trinity.

The church only exists in restored relationship with the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit, on the merits of Christ’s work, restores what was lost in the fall: divine-human relationship. The restoration of this relationship brings the church into existence. Restored relationship with the Creator constitutes the very being of the church. Just as the Holy Spirit brought Jesus into the world, he also births the church, the body of Christ, into the world.

The Holy Spirit gave birth to the church at Pentecost by bringing the disciples into union with Christ. The Holy Spirit filled each disciple as he did the temple in the Old Testament. This time, however, the temple is the unified body of Christ. In the new covenant, God is not just near but within. Eden, the place of divine-human fellowship and unity, is now in the heart of each believer.

While the Holy Spirit indwells individuals, each is a part of one baptism, worshiping one Lord, making up one temple (Eph. 4:5). Like the inner life of the Trinity, there is a mutual indwelling (perichoresis) among believers with one another, and with Christ. There is no single Christian apart from the rest, and there is no collective apart from the individual. There is unity with distinction, diversity in oneness. Through the church, the body of believers, salvation comes to the individual, never apart from it. The salvation of one always originates in another.

All of this is because in being united with Christ who was united to humanity through the incarnation, humanity is introduced into the inner life of God. That new race in Jesus is the church, and the Holy Spirit is the bond of love that joins them together in unity. There is no church without the Holy Spirit because there no union with Christ without the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, there is no union of Christ with the human nature (i.e., incarnation) without the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit’s activity then extends backward and forward, making possible both the originating work of salvation found in Jesus Christ, as well as its application which went outward from his person into all the world.

We can see then that the work of the Holy Spirit enlivens all of the good and beautiful works that bring God into union with his creation, especially his people.

This is what the Holy Spirit does for the Church.

Words Matter: Witness

This week’s devotional is entitled, Understanding Worship and is written by Richard J. Foster. Foster is a pastor, writer, and the founder of Renovaré. We hope this devotional encourages your faith.

Worship is our human response to God’s divine initiative. 

Think of Isaiah in the splendor of Solomon’s temple, experiencing the astonishing vision of the Lord high and lifted up. The temple is filled with a myriad of angels flying around and calling out to one another, ​“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The foundations of the temple begin to shake and the whole place is filled with heavenly smoke. No wonder Isaiah cries out, ​“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips: yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”1

Or think of John on the barren island of Patmos ​“in the spirit on the Lord’s day.”2 He hears a booming voice like a trumpet, and he sees seven golden lampstands with the resurrected Jesus in the middle, clothed in a long robe with a golden sash. Jesus’s hair is like a blizzard of white, his eyes like a flame of fire, his feet like furnace-fired bronze, and his voice like the sound of many waters. He holds seven stars in his hand, out of his mouth comes a razor-sharp sword, and his face shines like the blazing sun of noonday. No wonder John ​“fell at his feet as though dead.”3

What an explosion of supernatural sound and color and image and energy! Who wouldn’t fall to the ground in the face of such staggering divine initiatives? 

But most of us must admit that these are not our normal experiences when we shuffle off to our local church. There the drums are too loud, the person next to us sings off-key, and we fight to stay awake through the sermon. Even when we wander into the magnificent granite cathedrals of nature, we struggle, for the sun is too hot and the mosquitoes bite. 

Our efforts at worship certainly seem rather ordinary when compared with Isaiah and John. Perhaps we feel like we are stuck in the outer court when everyone else has gone into the inner court and a select few have entered the holy of holies. Still, we should not despise our seemingly feeble efforts at worship. God is with us. Who knows when the divine initiative may come to fan the coals of our worship into a burning blaze? George Fox counseled, ​“Meet together in the Name of Jesus… he is your prophet, your shepherd, your bishop, your priest, in the midst of you, to open to you, and to sanctify you, and to feed you with life, and to quicken you with life.”4

So whether our worship experience is of the fireworks variety of Isaiah and John or of a more ordinary kind, we can all follow the wise counsel of the apostle Paul: ​“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.”5 Then, in the presence of God the prayer of our hearts can be simply, ​“Set my spirit free, that I may worship Thee.”

Words Matter: Redemption

 
 

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

Words Matter: Love and the Cross, Part 2

 
 

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

Words Matter: Love and the Cross, Part 1

 
 

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

Guest Speaker: Bernard Kalukusha

 
 

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. Bernard Kalukusha. Bernard serves as the principal of the Great Commission Bible School in Malawi, Africa. This school trains and educates the Free Methodist pastors in Malawi.

To learn more about the Free Methodist Church in Malawi, visit fmwm.org/africa/malawi/.

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 and listen to previous discussion podcast episodes.

Blessings on you and your week.

Pastor Kyle

Words Matter: Hope

This weeks devotion is entitled, Hope Is Always and is written by Matt LeRoy. Matt LeRoy is a contributing author at Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

Psalm 130

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
2 Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

CONSIDER THIS

I get to be one of the co-pastors for a beautiful little church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Each of our pastors embraces a bi-vocational ministry approach, meaning we hold other jobs beyond the church. This strategy empowers intentional incarnation in our community and focuses more funds on our mission.

In the early days of our church plant I worked as a substitute teacher in our local school system. Glamorous, I know. I imagined myself in a scene from Dead Poets Society, changing lives with my lectures on To Kill a Mockingbird, inspiring young minds to discover their dreams and follow their hero into the noble life of substituting teaching.

Instead, most of my instruction boiled down to me saying, “Under no circumstance is it ever appropriate to use that word to describe anyone or anything.”

So, you can understand my surprise when I heard something that grabbed my attention in a good way. Once, in a class discussion about a short story, middle school students were describing the mood created by the author. One soft spoken, shaggy haired kid offered this assessment: “The story is tense, scary and dangerous all the way through. But even though you feel afraid, hope is always present.”

And there it is.

The student’s description of that short story captures the thrust of the whole story, the cry of Psalm 130, the longing realized in Advent.

Advent is a season of robust hope. It is the kind of hope that is always present, not merely an idea planted firmly in the future. Jesus takes what is future, what is far off, and drags it into the present. He buries it in us like a seed, waiting for the harvest. We may not see the flourishing right now, but it is there, taking root and stretching out in the soil of our souls. Hope is present where we need it the most—in the thick of it, where the road closes in and the end seems cut off.

When it seems as if there is no hope, we remember that is precisely the one thing we do have. We light a wreath of candles as an act of defiance against the darkness.

We proclaim the anthem of Advent, the disruptive genius of God With Us. With us as we cry out from the depths. With us in our pain, our tragedy, our longing. With us to empower premeditated love, even in the face of fear. With us to form his people into a living protest against the way things are, and a prophetic vision of what should be and could be and one day will be.

He is with us as we wait for Advent all over again, watching and hoping for the return of our long-expected Jesus. Like a watchman waits for the morning.

Guest Speaker: Darin & Jill Land

 
 

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 Dr. Darin Land. Darin serves and one of the primary leaders for Free Methodist World Mission in the Asia Area. We encourage you to check out the Asia area information page here.

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 and listen to previous discussion podcast episodes.

Blessings on you and your week.

Pastor Kyle

Words Matter: Life

This weeks devotion is a video entitled “The Deeply Formed Life: What Abiding In Jesus Can Offer The World.” This video is recorded by Pastor Pastor Rich Villodas and is part of a video series called Seven Minute Seminary hosted on Seedbed.com.

We live in a fragmented world, one impacted by the interruption of COVID19, political idolatry, and racial hostility. How might the people of God live in this climate, and what might they have to offer our polarized world? In this Seven Minute Seminary video, Rich Villodas calls us to deep abiding in Jesus—the only kind of life that can help heal the fragmentation in our world.

Words Matter: Peace

This week’s devotion is entitled, “What on Earth Is the Peace of Christ?” and is written by J.D. Walt. J.D. Walt is the executive director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

COLOSSIANS 3:15

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

CONSIDER THIS

Question for you: What is the “peace of Christ”? What on earth does this mean? Like many of you, I’ve been in a lot of church services where people walk around saying “Peace,” to one another and shaking hands. Surely that can’t be it! It’s another one of those motions disconnected from the movement. Is the peace of Christ a feeling or a mood or a soft sentiment or is it something more firm and tangible?

On the night before Jesus gave himself up for us, he said this to his disciples:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)

We hear a lot these days about “peace through strength.” I think they heard it a lot back in those days too. It was called the Pax Romana—the Peace of Rome. The Peace of Christ was something altogether different.

The lordship of Caesar guaranteed the Peace of Rome through the strength of military might. The lordship of Jesus stood in direct contrast, a crucified king raised from the dead. The peace of Christ is an unshakable peace that comes through apparent weakness, won through death and resurrection. It is the bond formed in a group of people who have given up on the kingdoms of this world and taken up the way of the cross. The peace of Christ is the peace of the cross, a place of unbridled chaos and unutterable pain intersected with the complete reverse of resurrection.

Peace through weakness. It’s what a lot of us need right now, because our strength has failed. We need to lean into a community of peace; people who get the mysterious reality of death and resurrection because they have lived through it. We need the kind of peace the world can’t give us. We need the peace of Christ. We don’t need someone speaking mindless religious words to us. We need someone to embrace us, chaos and all, and not let go when the embrace is over.

The peace of Christ be with you.

And also with you.

It better be more than that, church.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Real Peace. Domino #3/15 will be our sign.

THE PRAYER

Abba Father, we thank you for your Son, Jesus, who is our peace. In the midst of the complex chaos that swirls in my life, where solutions are nonexistent, I desperately need the peace of Jesus. I need this peace to rule in my heart. Come, Holy Spirit, and fill me with this peace, and make me a bearer of it to others. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

  1. Have you ever wondered what the peace of Christ is? How do you describe it?

  2. Is your heart troubled by the chaos swarming around you? What would peace look and feel like to you?

  3. What does your synthetic or artificial or counterfeit peace look like? What do you turn to instead of the peace of Christ?

Words Matter: Fellowship

The devotion this week is entitled, Freed to Love: 3 Keys to Committing to Community and is written by Katie Heckle. Katie Heckle is a contributing author at Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages your faith.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Galatians 5.13-14

This freedom that sets you free also frees you to love and serve others. Because Christ has set us free, we are freed from shallow, superficial, self-absorbed relationships and freed for deep, intentional, sacrificial relationships.

What does your community look like? Do you feel that you are using your God-given freedom to love and serve your community or are you keeping your freedom to yourself? Here are a few ways that will help to deepen your relationships and allow you to use the freedom God has given you to love and serve your community.

1. To freely love and serve others requires the act of vulnerability.

Typically, when we hear the word vulnerable, we think it has to do with me being honest about me to someone else. While that is part of vulnerability, vulnerability also has another face. In Galatians 6.1, Paul says, “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.”

This is the kind of vulnerability when you notice that someone is struggling or stuck in sin and you offer a hand to pull them out so that Jesus can restore them. Notice the language he offers the helper: “..gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.” When it comes to our neighbor, we must be sure to remain humble when we offer help; when it comes to ourselves, we must recognize our own responsibility for our actions. Speaking into someone else’s life must be balanced with examining our own life as well.

What Paul is telling us to do here with one another is vulnerable. It’s risky to get involved in someone else’s business because we don’t know how they’re going to respond. But to love is to be vulnerable (C.S. Lewis).

2. To freely love and serve others requires the act of commitment.

One way to carry out commitment with one another is to help carry burdens. Paul says, “Carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 1.2).

Picture carrying something. Carrying something small or light is easy, but carrying something big and bulky can be challenging. When we’re in relationships with one another, sometimes helping to carry a burden is light and doesn’t cost you much. Other times, it can be like carrying something that is awkward, challenging, and uncomfortable, which can cost you much emotionally, mentally, and physically.

When carrying someone’s burdens, Paul says we are fulfilling the law of Christ.

This law Paul is talking about here is in John 13.34 when Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says: “A new command I give to you: love one another as I have loved you, you are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” When we help to carry one another’s burdens, we are showing each other the love of Christ. Jesus says the world will know we are his followers by our love.

‘Bearing one another’s burdens’ needs to be balanced with ‘each of you carrying your own load.’ I can’t carry your burden for you and you can’t carry mine, but we can help carry one another.

Although it is a call to bear someone else’s burdens even at personal expense, there are some situations where you don’t have the skill set that someone really needs. Seek advice to help figure out the role that you should play when dealing with deep burdens. Also, be aware of toxic situations. This “bearing a burden” gets really complicated in toxic relationships like abuse or just a bad relationship. The reality is that some relationships need to end.

Another way to carry out commitment with one another is to continue doing good. Paul says, “Let us not become weary in doing good for at the appropriate time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6.9).

The freedom that we’re freed for frees us to do good. The mission to not grow weary means that doing good is tiring and exhausting. Although you’ll want to quit sometimes, we are urged to continue to use our freedom to do good. In doing so, Paul says we will reap a harvest at the appropriate time. What is the harvest? It’s the fruit that comes from being in relationship with one another.

Life-giving sacrificial relationships require commitment and vulnerability from each person in the relationship. The tricky part of this is the fact that you can’t force another person to be vulnerable or committed. When only one person is living this way, the relationship isn’t healthy and interdependent. The person who is living vulnerable and committed, by nature, is more likely to be wounded.

But when people disappoint us, wound us, hurt us by their actions and words, our world shouldn’t shatter because we should be living from a place of knowing that we are deeply loved.

3. To freely love and serve others requires you to first live loved.

You have to know you are loved before you step into community. We love each other because he first loved us – 1 John 4.19.

If you do not know you are loved and your identity comes from being the beloved sons and daughters of God, you’re going to place unrealistic expectations on the people within your community. When you really believe that you are loved by God, you can allow your friends the freedom to respond to your love in their own way.

The freedom we have to transform our relationships from shallow, superficial, self-absorbed ones into deep, intentional, sacrificial ones must be anchored in knowing God’s love for us. You are first loved. God’s love has set you free thru Christ. And with that freedom you are then free to love others.

Pray that God reveals to you the barriers that keep you from being vulnerable and committed to a community of believers. Would you pray for God to guide you to someone you can be vulnerable and committed with? Would you ask God to continue to restore brokenness in your life where friendships have failed and ask him to redeem those places where we fall short?