Are you a bearer of God’s light, like Sarah?
5 Jan 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Genesis 12
Genesis 13
Genesis 14
Matthew 5:1-26
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14).
Are you a bearer of God’s light, like Sarah?
More space is dedicated to Sarah in the Bible than any other woman. An entire chapter covers her death and burial (Genesis 23). Sarah tenaciously stands by Abraham through thick and thin. Moreover, she is the only married woman cited along with her husband in Hebrews 11 concerning the heroes and heroines of faith.
Faith can be defined as taking God at His word and acting upon it. The writer of Hebrews pens, “By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged Him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11). Peter cites Sarah as an example of modesty, faith, and of a loving wife (1 Peter 3:1-6).
Employment Point: Imitate Sarah and let your faith bring God’s light to the world.
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Reflections
As we were doing the book of Abraham in our CG, we also discussed about Sarah and how far she had come. We do realised that in her initial walk with God was all hearing from her husband and what the Lord has told Him. She herself had never hear from God till the time when she conceived. By then Abraham’s faith has also grown as he walked in obedience to the Lord’s calling.
What was encouraging is that she trusted and honoured her husband, even though he too, can make mistakes. She too made mistakes when she tried to take matters into her own hands when they kind of waited too long to conceive. But regardless of what they both did, the Lord called them as righteous.
To me, to imitate Sarah means to set my heart on the right places. The Lord comes first and nothing else matters. For the cross has always been to have a right relationship with God, followed by having the right relationship with men. May our anchor always be in Him so we can stand firm in adversities.
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Not Now, but Later
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
January 05
Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later. —John 13:36
When Peter first encountered Jesus, he was fascinated. Jesus said, “Follow me,” and Peter went easily. Then he denied Jesus three times, his heart broke, and fascination turned to shame. When Jesus called to him again, Peter could go only because he’d received the Holy Spirit. The first time Peter followed, there was nothing mystical about it. The second was based on a supernatural change, an internal martyrdom made possible by the Spirit (John 21:18).
Between these two moments, Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses. He came to the limits of himself, the end of his human power. Destitute and empty, realizing he could no longer trust himself, he was finally ready to receive the gift of the Spirit. “[Jesus] breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (20:22). Now, when Peter looked to Jesus, all he saw was Jesus: not the dreams that had enchanted him before, not a vision of himself playing the devoted follower. God had changed Peter, awakening shame and self-knowledge inside him. Yet even these changes Peter knew not to count on. He’d learned to count only on a person—on Jesus himself—and on the Spirit he gives.
“Receive the Holy Spirit”: it is an invasion, one that cannot happen until we come to the end of ourselves. We must come to this end not just in our imaginations but really. When we do, we realize that, in fact, we never did have any power of our own. That’s why all our vows and resolutions ended in failure.
Now, on the other side of that failure, we see clearly. Only one star shines in our sky—our lodestar, Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The Bible is the only Book that gives us any indication of the true nature of sin, and where it came from.
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Reflections
This concept by Oswald would not be understood by anyone who has not tried every means to do something themselves and ending in failure. It is a process of exhaustion from leaning in our own understanding, doing it our way instead of God’s way and feeling stumped and discouraged.
It felt like a sense of awakening to our senses and to finally come to realise everything is just mists, temporal and never eternal. The things we attempt to achieve ends up not worth pursuing and we realised that the direction we wanted to drive was all a mistake, heading in the opposite direction of what exactly the Lord wants us to do. But yet again, this seems to be the only way through, and like a rite of passage of anyone who wants to grow in their faith journey.
Humans fail all the time and especially when the anchor is never in the Lord but in our own strength, our own ability, our own resources, etc. But it is only when we realised that we cannot, then we can see that only He can. And this seems to be yet another painful pruning, stripping ourselves of all pride and be lowered to a humbling self.
Lord, pls be gentle with us as You know our limits and how much we can bear. Help carry us when we can no longer do or feel weary. Strengthen us Oh Lord, so that we can soar on wings like eagles. We will run and not be weary. We will walk and not be faint.
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