Life Through the Spirit

PRAYER PRACTICE

Spoken Prayer – Out loud, pray for God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Ask the Spirit to help you read with faith, and to live out what you hear from God through the passage.

 

DAILY READING

Romans 8:12-17

 

DEVOTION / REFLECTION

Adopted Heirs!

by Pr. Dave Mann

 

Some of you may know that I spent 20+ years of my life living with and serving people of other cultures.  All of these people groups, prior to the arrival of Christianity, have had a religion of their own.  Most of these have had a belief in one supreme God.  However, the character of their deity has been aloof, distant, whimsical, unpredictable, punitive, and most of all – non-relational.  These other gods have not committed themselves to be connected to people.  The relationship with their god is marked by a mixture of fear and suspicion, dread that the god might do something that would be hurtful.  Verse 15 states that this is NOT the kind of relationship that we can expect from the one, true God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.

 

The apostle Paul goes on to write, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The original Greek word for “adoption” is the term for full legal standing as an heir to the wealth and possessions of the father.  This clearly states that God is in covenant with all who believe and trust in him.  To be an heir is the closest of relationships.  To be an heir of God means that all the wealth and resources of God are at our disposal!  This is accomplished by the working of the Spirit of God within those who repent and believe.

 

When sharing the good news with another people group, or when we examine our own belief, it is not just enough for them (or us) to believe that there is but one God.  Rather, we should ask them (and ourselves), “What is the character of that God?” Is He trustworthy?  For the one, almighty, cosmic, Creator-God to humble himself to take on human flesh, to suffer, to die, to rise again, to live in covenant relationship with his people – that is truly uniquely amazingly Good News! 

 

Abba, Father!  Emmanuel, God with us! 

 

O Father, thank you for deigning to be connected to us in covenant relationship.  We do not deserve such treatment from the one holy God.  In the face of our sin, it would make sense for you to abandon us.  But you stay faithful to your covenant promise, despite our sin.  We are eternally amazed – eternally grateful.  Amen

One Body

PRAYER PRACTICE

Spoken Prayer – Out loud, pray for God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Ask the Spirit to help you read with faith, and to live out what you hear from God through the passage.

 

DAILY READING

Romans 12:3-8

 

DEVOTION / REFLECTION

Using God's Gifts

by Pr. Dave Mann

 

One of the great things I love about the Bible is how it frees us from either-or thinking.  “Either one thing is true, or the polar opposite is true” is how we tend to think.  In this passage the Spirit uses the Apostle Paul to set us free from unhelpful either-or thinking about our personal gifts.  It is NOT true that either we should be braggarts about how gifted we are, or we should be wallflowers never stepping forward to act with confidence.  The Holy Spirit instructs in Romans 12 otherwise. 

 

First (in verses 3-5), we read that whatever giftedness we have, it is all given by grace.  It is God who has made us who we are.  We should not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.  It is God who has assigned us with certain abilities.  God does not give us “wages” as though we earned what we are.  But it is by grace that we have any gifts at all.  No one likes people who boast how great they are, how spectacular they are, how special they are.  We resist such people.  At best we tolerate them for a time and then we avoid them in the future.  The Apostle Paul reminds us that God is the Great Gift-Giver, and therefore we have no basis for boasting.

 

On the other side, there are some people who over-react to the call to humility by never stepping forward to put their skills into service.  The Apostle Paul calls us to act in accord with the abilities God has wired in us (verses 6-8).  If someone gives you a gift that you really appreciate, it is normal to use it well in order to honor the giver.  What is listed in verses 6-8, is not intended to be an exhaustive list of God’s gifts.  These are examples of what God gives:  prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership, compassion, and many more.  If God has gifted you, use your gift in order to honor the Giver.  God knew what he was doing when he formed you.  God is good, and he knows how to give good gifts.  Using your gifts is NOT being overly proud; rather, using your gifts is a way of pointing to the Giver.

 

 

Heavenly Father, forgive us for allowing ourselves to be overly proud or overly timid.  Forgive us for being boastful or for allowing our gifts to lie dormant.  Thank you for your character of giving.  Thank you for the good gifts you have given each of us.  Allow us the grace to serve you well as we put into service the abilities you have given us.  Amen

The Lord is Good

Psalm 135:1-5 

The people addressed in Psalm 135:1-5 are those who serve in the temple (read "church"), the ones who make the church work, the 20% who are the regular volunteers. They are exhorted to believe and to serve God with all their heart. Do those people really need encouragement? Don't they get it already? Well, yes and no. Yes, we regularly serve. But no, we are not immune to the temptations and trials of the world and of the Enemy. Every day those who serve the Lord need to be re-converted to believe, as though it were the very first time.

Martin Luther wrote in The Small Catechism that the old Adam, our sinful and selfish desires, "should be drowned by DAILY sorrow and repentance" and that the new man "should come forth DAILY and rise up, cleansed and righteous." Every day is a new opportunity for even the most dedicated to re-commit to the Lord. It's a new day to appreciate the Lord's renewed mercies, as we read in Lamentation 3:23 – “for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”

QUESTIONS:

1. What is your daily practice of coming into the presence of God and recommitting your life to Him?

2. Where do you sense the mercies of the Lord offered anew each morning?

PRAYER:

Heavenly Father, as I serve You and Your church, allow me to rediscover Your grace, repent of my sins, and cling to Your forgiveness.

Dave Mann

The Powerful King

  Mark 5:21-43

Our God has power to bless. But sometimes, it appears his blessings get delayed or even repurposed. For example, as Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus, he got detoured with the healing of the woman with the flow of blood.

While living in Cameroon, we saw God work powerfully. There was the time when there was a contagious cattle blight, with whole herds wiped out. One nomadic herdsman came to a Christian church asking for prayer for his cattle because his brother’s cattle, with which his had mingled, had begun to show disease symptoms. The Christians obliged, fervently praying for protection. Two weeks later, the Fulani herdsman returned rejoicing that he had discovered the true God. Even though his brother’s cattle continued to diminish in numbers, his were not affected at all.

A short time later, my visiting father collapsed with an apparent heart attack. We did CPR and prayed. The response of our loving Father was not to heal him miraculously as with the Muslim’s herd. What we discovered in our grief was that God used my dad’s death to speak to the Cameroonians in ways that we had not anticipated and could not have orchestrated otherwise.

The lesson? Because we are confident that our God is powerful and loving, we pray fervently for his blessing. His response may be different from what we hope for, but it will always be for our good and his glory.

                                                                               Pastor David Mann