Are you maintaining your spiritual disciplines?

 24 Jan 26

Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One


Readings:

Exodus 7

Exodus 8

Matthew 17


However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21). 


Are you maintaining your spiritual disciplines?


Jesus chooses three disciples to display His glory before them. Do you think the other nine got jealous of Peter, James, and John who witness Jesus’ transfiguration? Jesus previously empowered the twelve to expel demons (Matthew 10:1). Yet the nine couldn’t cast out a demon from a boy (Matthew 17:16). Why did they lack the capacity to expel an unclean spirit, since they had previously been given that ability? Perhaps they become jealous of Peter, James, and John instead of being content with their designated service for Jesus; they temporarily lose their effectiveness since they are not walking with Jesus. I believe Jesus exposes their lack of spirituality by saying, “this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). 


Employment Point: Maintain a close walk with Jesus, including fasting and prayer, to effectively serve Him.

——————-

Reflections

I believe I shared in a previous reflection about us coming to the Lord or the Lord putting us aside to minister to us before we can move to the other season of life.


We cannot do Lord’s work if we do not have a close relationship with Him. Our ministry will not be effective because we may not know a lot of things. First things first, the Lord comes first and the rest later. When we choose to honour God, He will in turn bless us and show us that the choice is right. And by that, we will learn that all the things are just not under our control. He owns every single thing in this world and there’s also nothing that He does not know, in each person or creature, individually.


He sometimes isolates us not because He is angry with us or something but because He saw a need in us that requires us to remain still, to rest, in order to understand revelations that He provides. Without us being like Mary, we will just be Martha, busy doing and totally forgetting what is more important.


May putting Him as first priority take precedence in our lives and guide us every step of the way. In times when we make the wrong choices, Father may You be gentle with us, correct us and bring us back to the right paths for Your name’s sake.

———————-

The Overmastering Relationship

BY OSWALD CHAMBERS

January 24


I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness. —Acts 26:16


Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus was no passing dream. It was a vision that brought with it clear and emphatic instructions. Jesus told Paul that from now on Paul’s whole life was to be mastered: it was to be subdued, to have no end, aim, or purpose except Christ’s. “I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant.”


All of us, when we are born again, have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. The big thing we must learn is not to be disobedient to the vision; we must not say that it can’t be attained. We think it can’t be attained because our faith doesn’t have the proper foundations. It isn’t enough to believe that God has redeemed the world, or that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did come alive in us. We must have the basis of a personal relationship with him. Paul wasn’t given a script or a doctrine to proclaim; he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship with Jesus Christ, and on this basis he became a witness.


We too must have as the foundation of our faith a personal relationship with Jesus. This is the only way our vision will be attained, and the only way we’ll succeed in obeying it. Verse 16 is immensely commanding: “to appoint you as a servant and as a witness.” There is nothing there apart from a personal relationship.


Paul was devoted to a person, not a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else; he lived for nothing else. “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).


Exodus 9-11; Matthew 15:21-39


WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves. 

———————

Reflections

The word servant reminds me of the senior servant to Abraham. The one whom Abraham has entrusted all that he own and the one whom Abraham had sent to look for a wife for his son Isaac among his own land, making him swear and take an oath that he will not help take a wife from other places.


Over the 55 years that the servant had served Abraham, he would have witnessed his master’s growth and how the Lord blessed Abraham. He too, would have experienced blessings, for he was given the power like that of Joseph, reporting only to one man.


The bible wrote down clearly how he was obedient to Abraham and seek a wife for Isaac. He prayed to the Lord for Him to choose a woman for Isaac, not someone of his own choosing.


So from that part of the story, it reminds me of how we are very much like the servant. Our reporting officer is the Lord and the rest are actually our fellow brothers and sisters. The length of time we are Christians has allowed us to see and experience Jesus Himself multiple times. So would we be like the obedient servant who does all that the Lord asks us to do? To be one who is fearing God and rather do His will than not?


May we all also be encouraged that we are all in this together. We are not on a lone journey of faith. There are times where we may fall, stumble, etc but we should never look back. The journey is forward to the end goal that He has set for us. Fix our eyes on Jesus and let it be. 

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