How will you cause Jesus to marvel?

 9 Jan 26

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


Readings:

Genesis 23

Genesis 24

Matthew 8


Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed (Matthew 8:8). 


How will you cause Jesus to marvel?


Jesus visits His hometown of Nazareth. Although those in the synagogue “were astonished” at His teaching (Mark 6:2), they rejected Him. Mark records Jesus’ response: “And He marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6). In contrast, our Lord enters Capernaum. A centurion who desires Jesus to heal a paralyzed servant who suffers greatly approaches Him. The centurion is a Gentile who commands one hundred soldiers. This man understands authority because he is governing many troops and also takes orders from a superior. He graciously turns down Jesus’ offer to go to his home and demonstrates his profound faith by telling Jesus, “But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.” 


Employment Point: Cause Jesus to marvel by believing in His person and work.

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Reflections

The centurion taught us all a valuable lesson. Not something that the apostles have but a gentile who believes and has profound faith on our Lord Jesus Christ, that by who He is and by His authority, He has the power to bring about healing and for us anything that He wills it.


I find myself sometimes doing the same thing that most of us do. Indeed of trusting in our Lord Jesus since we know Him, I doubted His power and His authority. I didn’t pray from a position of victory and instead think of my challenges and problems bigger than anything else, totally forgotten that even before I open my mouth to speak, He already knows as He is sovereign. I kept trying to box the Lord up into a space only I understand, forgetting how He is much more capable and powerful than I am. Things I do not understand, He already knew since He is the creator and also there in the beginning of times. Why do I doubt? I of little faith…


Father Lord, please forgive the times that I forgot that You are LORD, the times I try to do things on my own understanding, the times when I kept trying based on my own knowledge instead of seeking You and Your wisdom, the times I jumped ahead of You and ended up in a mess. Lord I just want to thank You for Your grace and mercy towards me. I messed up and You are still so so  good to me. Thank You Lord for Your teachings and Your compassion for all. May You guide my hands as I manoeuvre through 2026 that everything I do will be God-led. I don’t want to strive anymore but just to lean on You and learn from You. Thank You Father, all praises to Your goodness and faithfulness. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen 🙏🏻 

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Where God Can Go

BY OSWALD CHAMBERS

January 09


May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless. —1 Thessalonians 5:23


Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians, that they be kept blameless in their whole spirit, soul, and body, is a prayer that can only be answered through the great mystical work of the Holy Spirit.

Far beneath the surface of our personality lies a shadowy region we ourselves can’t get at. This is where our deepest fears and motivations are found, those unconscious forces we haven’t chosen and can’t control. If we are to be made blameless here, we need the Spirit to seek us out: “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me,” writes David in Psalm 139:1. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7).


The psalm is a testimony to God’s omnipresence and eternity, his everywhereness and alwaysness. David is saying, “You are the God of the early mornings and the late-at-nights, the God of the mountain peaks and of the sea. But, my God, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darknesses than the night, higher peaks than any mountain, greater depths than any sea. You who are God of all these things, be my God. There are motives I cannot understand, dreams I cannot grasp. Please, Lord, search them out.”


Do we believe that God can garrison our imagination far beyond where we can go? As the ancient Romans sent garrisons of soldiers beyond the reaches of their empire, so God sends the Spirit to the outer limits of our soul. It is only when we are garrisoned by God in this way that we are made blameless. Blameless does not mean perfection but preserved in unspotted integrity, undeserving of censure in God’s sight, until Jesus comes.


Genesis 23-24; Matthew 7


WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.

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Reflections

More than a week into the new year, I just want to give thanks to the Lord. Lord as we begin this day today, let us just take some time to pause and give thanks to You. We thank You for waking us up today, thank You for giving us new mercies and thank You for a good night’s rest. Even as we reflect back on the year 2025, we can really see Your hands and Your guidance for us throughout the year. Thank You for loving us and also our loved ones.


Help us Lord, not to look at prayers as a burden or a stressor but as a form of communication from us to You. Help us to remember every other while praying so that we will not be selfish and only think about ourselves and the people we know. Help us open our hearts to also pray for the people who do not know, for the leaders and the peace of the world as well.


Lord, help us not to take anything for granted, even the brothers and sisters that You have placed in our lives, for the shepherds that You have anointed to lead us and supported us in our walk with You. 


Help us to be thankful and give thanks for every goodness that You have given us and also the challenges that we faced daily. Because it is through it all that we are learning and building a stronger and more intimate relationship with You. Help us to find pure joy, whenever we face trials of many kinds, because we know that the testing of our faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.


Lord guard our thoughts, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You and worthily magnify Your Holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Search me God and know our hearts, test us and know our anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive ways in us and lead us in the way everlasting. Thank You Father Lord. We praise You and give You thanks. In Jesus’s most mighty name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻

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