Community Devotions

Fire on the Earth

SCRIPTURE

I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. - Luke 12:49-50

OBSERVATION

 Erroneous thoughts of Jesus are thrown out of the window when we encounter him in Scripture. Fallacies of a tame savior or domesticated Lord are shattered when we come to Jesus as he is. Jesus is a wild messiah who has come to cast fire on earth. There is a steep price for the baptism of fire, suffering and death that Jesus paid for in obedience to the Father. He expects no less for those whom he died for in his followers.

APPLICATION

What happens to Christ happens to those who are in Christ. To be saved is free but to be a follower of Jesus costs. I need to rekindle my allegiance in following my wild messiah. Death to flesh i.e. discipline my body and keeping it under control is a daily price I pay in following him. Walk out with vigor God’s word for me for 2019. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

PRAYER

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for meeting me this morning! I come to you as you are—Savior, Lord, the Christ. You are worthy of my everything. I love you with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. I give to you my heart and my allegiance. Holy Spirit help me to serve you with all my might in Jesus name. Maranatha!

Robust Yet Imperfect

SCRIPTURE

"Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation… 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him and Lot went with him” - Genesis 12:1-2a; 4)

OBSERVATION

Abraham is the biblical example of faith par excellence i.e. “Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas 2:23). His faith was so robust that he left everything he knew in order to go to the land that God will show him. Whereas most of us mere mortals need precise directions and a detailed map before we move out in faith, the presence of God was enough for Abraham to leave his country and family to obey the promises of God. Yet as robust as his faith was—it was still imperfect. He didn’t trust God with his posterity and blatantly lied (twice!) about his wife Sara while putting her life in danger. Living in faith is not a perfect endeavor. We stumble and fall in doing our best to follow God. One minute Abraham was courageous then the next minute he is a coward. Suck is the nature of faith.

APPLICATION

Failure is not final. Just because I fall doesn’t mean I quit. This long obedience in the same direction of following God is a marathon of falling and getting up. Martin Luther King Jr said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Faith is moving forward because God is faithful. When Abram failed God intervened to ensure that his promises would endure

PRAYER

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for your faithfulness! Your faithfulness in providing and securing salvation in Christ is steadfast:

    “If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

    if we endure, we will also reign with him;

    if we deny him, he also deny us;

    if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:11-12)