Another Day 12 Loving Devotion: Digging Deeper
February 4, 2023
Discipline,Equipped,Faithfulness,Fellowship,Giving,GT Weekend
Rest your soul through reflective journaling,
praying Scripture,
and worshiping the Creator who
longs for intimacy with each of us!
This Week's Journeys
Psalm 16:7-8, 11
I will bless the Lord who counsels me—
even at night when my thoughts trouble me.
8 I always let the Lord guide me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken. (…) 11 You reveal the path of life to me;
in Your presence is abundant joy;
at Your right hand are eternal pleasures.
Prayer Journal Entry
Every day teach me to become more aware of the wickedness of my ways and create an ever-increasing hunger to long for Your paths of righteousness. I long to honor You with my days, my nights, my words, motivations, and actions. I pray, Lord Jesus, that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be pleasing to You. (Psalm 19:14) May I cast out all other idols and seek to love you first and most and best for all my days, Lord Jesus Christ.
Worship Through Song
Journal Prompts
“What if God sends me to Africa?” “What if God tells me to sell my car for a cheaper one?” “What if God wants me to give up my extra spending?”
If you haven’t asked these specific questions, you’ve likely wondered something similar. We understand that calling Christ “LORD” of our lives involves total surrender. Surrender is painful.
I’ve wrestled with these questions many times in my own faith walk, and I can confidently attest it is significantly more painful to resist the Lord than to lay ourselves down at the feet of His eternal goodness and grace. When we consider the cost of surrender, we easily forget the Lord to whom we surrender is gentle, tender, kind-hearted, and good. Christ does not call us to surrender our things, our time, and the treasures we love because He is greedy, rather, His call is motivated by His vast love.
He knows that until we tear down the idols we cherish, we cannot fully embrace Him who is infinitely greater than all other “lesser loves”. What is that “thing” the Lord keeps whispering to you to surrender? Choose today to give it over to His hands of Love!
On Wednesday, Deborah wrote, “The perverse dark world, blinded by its sin, shrieks at the light and beauty of Jesus.” Consider those you know who aren’t Christ-followers; how have you seen this truth played out? Where do they pull back harshly from the thought of Christ’s light exposing them?
Even harder, where do you feel your own soul run shrieking, begging to stay hidden in the dark so you don’t need to be conformed, often painfully, to the image of Jesus?
Sisters, I plead with you and with my own soul, these are the places we must bring to the Lord Jesus. The more we pull them back, the more painful it will be when the Lord has His way with us. His love for us is too vast to permit us to remain chained to our filthy patterns of self-love, self-protection, and sin.
Have you considered how rejecting full surrender to Christ is really a rejection of perfect love played out in your life? Spend time this weekend thinking about why you would rather choose to hide in the dark than bring your everything into the light of Christ, then talk with Him about it!
I have friends, and even more grievous to me, precious family members, who look at my consistent decisions to sacrifice worldly pleasures and they are repulsed. “Why don’t you like that tv show?” “Why don’t you enjoy this music?” “You don’t have a life-goal of a bigger house?”
Sara and Rachel’s words yesterday remind me of 1 Peter 4:4, “They are surprised that you don’t join them in the same flood of wild living—and they slander you.” When we choose Christ and choose to regularly surrender to His work in our lives, He changes our appetite toward worldly things; we begin to crave the holy instead of that which dishonors the Lord Jesus.
Take a few minutes and consider what has changed about your “appetite” in the last 12-18 months. How has Christ shaped your “hunger” to long for Him, His word, and His ways more than your own? Celebrate what He has done in you and ask Him to keep making you new! Then spend time praying for your friends and family who haven’t yet experienced the sweetness of Christ as their Lord. Ask Him to begin to change their heart-appetite toward the things of God that will last for eternity.
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generous,greed,idol,pride,self-love,surrender
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This Week's Lock Screen
