Moment by Moment Love

ALL – Psalm 117:1-2
ALL – Proverbs 28:1
OT – Ezekiel 37:1-38:23
NT – James 1:19-2:17

Interesting passage for the day: Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s command, “You must love and help your neighbors just as much as you love and take care of yourself.” – James 2:8, The Living Bible

Thought: This is a command worth living up to. At the same time, it’s a continuing command. Loving our neighbors is an obligation that’s never finished as long as we live. We never run out of people to love. There’s always an opportunity to be kind, or patient, or generous.

I’m folding laundry right now. It’s part of what Christy and I affectionately call the “never ending chore.” No sooner have we put the last pair of socks in the drawer than it’s time to wash and fold three more loads of laundry.

That’s kind of what love is like. We can burst through a high-intensity day of incredible helpfulness, goodness, and camaraderie. We can even have a heroic moment or two. Does that mean that we’ve fulfilled this command to love our neighbors? Nope. We’ve obeyed it, but we haven’t fulfilled it, because there’s more service to offer, more opportunities to exercise patience, and more people in need of our grace, mercy and love.

Sometimes it feels like a burden. But it’s a burden we bear with Jesus at our side, and so it’s not so much a burden as a way of life. It’s a great rhythm to settle into, so long as Jesus is with us always, to the very end of the age.

Question: Do you take breaks from fulfilling the command to love our neighbors? How can we rest within this command and lifestyle rather than rest by retreating from it?

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.

Obedience Training

ALL – Psalm 74:1-23
ALL – Proverbs 24:15-16
OT – Isaiah 66:1-24
NT – Philippians 3:4-21

Interesting passage for the day: I hope all of you who are mature Christians will see eye-to-eye with me on these things, and if you disagree on some point, I believe that God will make it plain to you—if you fully obey the truth you have. – Philippians 3:15-16, The Living Bible

Thought: When writing to the Philippians, and through them to us, Paul firmly taught what he believed. But he understood that we might not get what he was saying, and that we might even disagree with him. He wasn’t concerned.

His concern was that believers take the truth they have and obey it—that we live what we’ve learned from God. Paul was convinced that if we did this, we would grow in our understanding of what God had to say to us through him. He believed that God Himself would teach us as we followed Him.

Let’s follow and obey our God rather than arguing about the points where we disagree. Maybe then we’ll learn and grow together.

Question: When disagreements begin to divide you from others, what ways have you found to do life together and fight the division? How have you chosen to love people you disagreed with, and learned more deeply from God as a result?

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.

The Guide, The Spirit

ALL – Psalm 64:1-10
ALL – Proverbs 23:23
OT – Isaiah 33:13-36:22
NT – Galatians 5:13-26

Interesting passage for the day: I advise you to obey only the Holy Spirit’s instructions. He will tell you where to go and what to do, and then you won’t always be doing the wrong things your evil nature wants you to do. – Galatians 5:16, The Living Bible

Thought: We need the Scriptures because they help us to learn to recognize God’s voice, and they correct us when we think we heard God’s voice and later find out otherwise.

But I’m growing more and more impressed with how often the New Testament writers urge us to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice as we make our daily choices. We believers have the Holy Spirit living in us! He whispers to our hearts and minds what His desires are for us in every situation. And we are called to listen and obey.

This certainly involves challenges. We have to learn to distinguish between our own desires and the Holy Spirit’s. We need enough humility to admit that we sometimes claim we’re hearing His voice when we really aren’t. We still need to discipline ourselves to return to the Scriptures, even though some people might deny this is a necessity since the Holy Spirit is guiding them (but then, wouldn’t the Holy Spirit’s desire for us include time in God’s Word?).

But we should be able to walk through life a lot more confidently than we often do. We should be confident that we can make good choices consistently—GODLY choices—not because we have perfectly read, studied, memorized, systematized and analyzed the Bible, but because we walk with the Holy Spirit every moment.

Question: What decisions are you thinking through today? What direction do you hear the Spirit leading you to take? Share it here and share your impressions with believing friends. You’re free to follow wherever He leads.

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.

Promise-Motivated Life

ALL – Psalm 47:1-9
ALL – Proverbs 22:16
OT – Ecclesiastes 4:1-6:12
NT – 2 Cor. 6:14-7:7

Interesting passage for the day: And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For you are God’s temple, the home of the living God, and God has said of you, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” – 2 Corinthians 6:16, The Living Bible

Thought: We all know that we’re supposed to do good. But what makes us want to do good? We recognize that God’s commands are right. But what makes us want to obey them?

How about God’s promises?

Take the one above, where God says that He shall live in us and walk among us, that He shall be our God, that we will be His people. He’s fulfilling that promise already! He’s already sent His Holy Spirit to live in us. He’s already become our God; we’ve already become His people. What a great God is ours! And we have more to look forward to. When Jesus comes again, this promise gets fulfilled in even more wonderful ways!

Doesn’t that make you yearn to please God? Looking forward to being with Him as fully as possible takes the concept of obeying Him and turns it from a “have to” into a “get to,” from a drudgery into a desire. I want God to be my God. He’s promised to be my God. So I want to please Him. God is so good.

Question: Which of God’s promises are especially inspiring and motivating for you? Please share them with us.

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.

Weekly Sermons in Swanton: Fishing with Jesus

The message covered Luke 5:1-11, and it can be heard via streaming audio at http://www.swantonalliance.org. We think we know so much about what we do at work, at home, even in the ministry. And yet we can’t accomplish what we really want to accomplish on our own. For our dreams to be fulfilled, we have to be listening to Jesus. Note: Past sermons can be accessed through the resources page.