DAILY DEVOTIONALS: 6.10.23

 YeWhich Are Spiritual “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit ofmeekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” (Galatians6:1) According to the New Testament, there are two broad categories of Christian believers, carnal and spiritual—that is, those whose actions and decisions are mainly governed by the “flesh” and those who normally are governed by the leading of the Holy Spirit.Paul noted this fact when he wrote to the bickering Christians in the church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ” (1Corinthians 3:1). Even though true believers can behave carnally, the fact that they are “babes in Christ” confirms that they are “in Christ.” They just need to grow up, as it were, into spiritual maturity through partaking of both the milk and the meat of the Scriptures. Note 1 Peter 2:2 (“desire the sincere milk of the word”) and Hebrews 5:14 (“strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age”) for the God-given principle of Christian growth. But our text also has a warning for spiritual Christians! When confronted with the fact of a “fault” (that is, literally, a willful sin) in the life of a Christian brother, we must remember that our own spirituality does not guarantee that we ourselvesare immune from sin. We must be careful to help rather than to condemn such a weak brother because we still can “also be tempted,” even though we usually try diligently to obey God’s Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is vital, the apostle reminds us, that “ye which are spiritual” maintain a true “spirit of meekness” in our interactions with fellow believers, as well as with the unsaved. HMM -------------------- Wisdomfor Encountering Trials “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith workethpatience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James1:2-5) Do you count trials as “joy”? Well, that’s what James commands in these beginning verses. His letter was directed to those Jewish saints who were scattered abroad—victims of intense persecution, hunted down because of their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s face it, we naturally dislike trials, with their accompanying chastening. Solomon acknowledged this resistance when he penned, “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction” (Proverbs3:11). But trials have a targeted purpose in sanctification as God strategically perfects the believer in his pilgrim’s progress. Who is your go-to first responder for wisdom when trials come knocking at your door? Maybe you seek a spouse, or friend, or you post on social media. Those choices may be helpful, but they’re limited at best. Instead, James 1:5 instructs believers that our Lord Jesus Christ is one prayer away. Additionally, He freely and quickly gives the needed wisdom for our struggle. What could ever compete with divine wisdom’s offer? Certainly not the cumulative riches of this world (Proverbs3:13-15). What’s more, our Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, skillfully used this same wisdom to speak His creation into existence (Genesis1–2), shaping the universe into perfection (Hebrews11:3). Our part is to ask “in faith, [with] nothing wavering” (James1:6) for this supreme wisdom. What are you waiting for? CM ByHis Spirit “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah4:6) All the works men undertake that glorify the Lord and have lasting value are accomplished by the work of His Spirit. All human striving toward good purposes is nothing without the direction and aid of that same powerful Spirit. Psalm 127:1 says, “Except theLORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” Christ’s ministry began with common folk. Jesus called forth Simon and Andrew as they were “casting a net into the sea,” and James and John while they were “mending their nets” (Matthew4:18, 21). The first followers of our Lord were not the great and powerful of this world. The apostle Paul told the Corinthian church, “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, arecalled” (1Corinthians 1:26). Many of God’s elect don’t have riches, rank, or power because the kingdom of Christ is not dependent on these worldly things. Indeed, “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world toconfound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence” (1Corinthians 1:27-29). God’s Spirit not only empowers His kingdom purposes and work but also individually provides the strength and fortitude we desperately need. Paul encouraged Timothy, saying, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a soundmind” (2Timothy 1:7). JPT --------------------------- AfterHis Own Heart “The LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain overhis people.” (1 Samuel 13:14) Here, Samuel the prophet tells King Saul that Yahweh plans to supplant him with a better king—one who is after His (God’s) own heart. Enter King David. What aspects of David’s life made him deserve this praise, and can we copy those aspects today? More context from our passage helps answer the first question. “And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God” (1Samuel 13:13). If Saul did not keep the Lord’s commandments, then his replacement, David, did keep them. Thus, those who keep His commandments—doing whatever He says to do—characterize those who are “after his own heart.” And David did just that, at times. For example, “then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand. So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought withthe Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah” (1 Samuel 23:4-5). David asked what the Lord wanted. The Lord answered. Then David did just what the Lord said, even when his men were “afraid” (1 Samuel 23:3). David fearedGod more than the daunting circumstances. And the result? David, led by Yahweh, saved a city. David later lapsed in his pursuit of hearing and obeying his Lord. But like us, when he did listen and obey, he was “a man after [God’s] own heart.” Will I do today just what the Lord says? BT --------------------- IsThere More to Life? - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org Yes, joyful are those who live like this! Joyful indeed are those whose God is the LORD. �Psalm 144:15 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/is-there-more-to-life/- Listen Before I became a Christian at age seventeen, I was sick and tired of this world. I had been raised in a home without God. I didn�t have anything to overcome as far as obstaclesto the Christian faith because I knew nothing about it. I had been to church a few times with my grandmother, but what I heard never really penetrated for the most part. I was truly godless. As I watched the adults in my world, I saw affluence and all the world had to offer. But I also saw how miserable they were. So, I went out on my own path and experiencedenough to see the emptiness of it. And by the time I was seventeen, I knew that life as this world offers it is empty. Coming from a broken home and a disillusioned generation, I was searching for meaning. My question was not so much whether there was life after death. It was whether there was life during life. Was there more to life? Then I heard about Jesus Christ. I heard one of His statements in which He said, �My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life� (John 10:10 NLT). Jesus not only offerslife after death; He offers life during life. And that got my attention. I noticed that Christians seemed to have found meaning. They weren�t doing the things I had been doing, and they had contentment. And when I became a Christian myself andstarted reading the Bible, it came alive to me. It was the user�s manual for life that I�d been searching for. The world offers a fleeting happiness that comes and goes. But God offers a happiness that will be there despite our circumstances. This happiness doesn�t come from what youhave; it comes from who you know. -------------------------- Designed to Know God - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless�like chasing the wind. �Ecclesiastes 1:14 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/designed-to-know-god/- Listen It isn�t that unusual anymore to hear about another rock star who overdosed or another Hollywood celebrity who has checked into a drug rehab unit�or, tragically, has committedsuicide. It�s hard for us to understand how people living in a Tinseltown world could be miserable. But they have the same problems we have. The difference is they have a lot of thethings that we dream of, yet they see the emptiness and futility of it all. Solomon saw this as well. He wrote, �Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are notcontent. History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new� (Ecclesiastes 1:8�9 NLT). It�s the conclusion that everyone will come to eventually. Of course, we can discover it the hard way, or we can discover it the easy way. We can take God�s word for it, orwe can foolishly chase after all the things that, in the end, will leave us empty. And some people who go down that road will lose their lives in the process. You don�t have to find out the hard way. You can come to God, and He will fill the void in your life. We all were born with an emptiness inside. No earthly relationship willfill it. No amount of sex or possessions will fill it. Nor will knowledge or morality or even good, clean living. We were designed to know God. And until you come into a relationship with Him, you will keep coming up empty, time and again, just as Solomon did. When you turn to God in faith and let Him forgive your sins, He will fill the void in your life�a void that only He can fill. --------------------------- YetNot I �But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but Ilaboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.� (1Corinthians 15:10) The apostle Paul was, by any measure, one of the most dedicated and fruitful Christians who ever lived. If any man had a right to be proud of his writings, or his works, or his life in general, it was Paul. No doubt he, like others, had to wrestle with thesin of pride, reminding himself again and again that all he had done he owed simply to the grace and guidance and provision of God. He could well have boasted, as noted in our text, that he had labored more abundantly than any of the other apostles, but then he brought himself up short with the remonstrance: �Yet not I!� All of his work and success therein he owed completely tothe grace of God. This phrase occurs just two other times. The first is when Paul is giving out his advice and wisdom concerning that most basic of all human institutions, marriage. �And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband� (1Corinthians 7:10). As wise (and even divinely inspired) as his words may have been, he must remind his readers that, after all, this was Christ�s command, not his! The last occurrence is in Paul�s great testimony concerning his new and changed life in Christ. �I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me� (Galatians2:20). The transformed, holy, powerful life he was living was not his own accomplishment but due solely to the indwelling Christ. And surely, if Paul must so remind himself and his listeners, then we should never boast of our own life or works or words.Not I, but Christ�that is to be our testimony! HMM ------------------------ We Belong to the Day - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don�t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoralliving, or in quarreling and jealousy. �Romans 13:13 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/we-belong-to-the-day/- Listen Shortly before he died, Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, recorded a song called �Party.� Here are some of the lyrics: �We were up all night, singing and giving achase� the next morning everybody was hung over.� In the refrain he repeatedly implores his party mates to �come back and play.� Don�t be pulled into the illusion that drinking and partying will make you a happy person. Christians should live apart from that. Romans 13 tells us, �This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Thenight is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living� (verses 11�12 NLT). Here�s how the J. B. Phillips New Testament puts it: �The present time is of the highest importance�it is time to wake up to reality. Every day brings God�s salvation nearer.The night is nearly over, the day has almost dawned. Let us therefore fling away the things that men do in the dark, let us arm ourselves for the fight of the day!� That is good advice. Don�t chase after those things. Proverbs 20:1 says, �Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls. Those led astray by drink cannot be wise� (NLT).Eventually the party will be over. Then where will you be? I�m reminded of the great hymn of the church that says, �On Christ, the solid Rock I stand�all other ground is sinking sand.� This world offers you cheap thrills that never will meet your deepest needs. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon arrived at the same conclusion: life is empty without God. -------------------------- Love,Faith, Joy �Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakableand full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.� (1Peter 1:8-9) Peter had seen the Lord, but he was writing to those who hadn�t, including us. Like them, we can have a personal relationship with the Lord, even though we haven�t physically seen Him. �Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed� (John20:29). Also like them, we can have terrible trials (1Peter 1:7). Their responses to Christ while in the midst of trials, as given in our text, are likewise appropriate for us. They loved Him: Love many times makes a trial bearable. �We love him, because he first loved us� (1John 4:19). �Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends� (John15:13). �Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?� (Romans8:35). He loves us too much to abandon us, and we love Him in return. They believed: �Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth [or believes] in thee� (Isaiah26:3). �Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters� (Jeremiah17:7-8). Our faith is well founded. They rejoiced: �But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ�s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy� (1Peter 4:13). The proper response to trials brings inexpressible joy. The end of such faith as explained in our text is the complete and ultimate salvation of our souls, with many victories of faith along the way. JDM ------------------ He Holds the Missing Piece - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord�who is the Spirit�makes us more and more like him as we are changed intohis glorious image. �2 Corinthians 3:18 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/he-holds-the-missing-piece/- Listen I wasn�t raised in the church. I grew up in an alcohol-dazed world, and I saw what it did to the adult generation. So, I detoured myself into the drug culture and tried alot of things. And I tried enough to know that it all was empty. When I heard about Jesus Christ, I thought, �I would like to know God. That idea sounds really good.� The idea of having a relationship with God held great appeal for me. But I also noticed that the Christians on my high school campus were sweet and nice and loving. I thought, �I�m not that way. I�m cynical and sarcastic. In fact, I can bekind of mean. I don�t know if I can become one of those people.� However, after I became a Christian, God started working in my life. Now, I�m not saying that I don�t have a little bit of cynicism still. I�m not saying that I haven�t beensarcastic since my conversion. But I am saying that God changed my heart. In fact, when I told people that I was a Christian, they didn�t believe it. They thought I was joking. And later when I became a preacher, they laughed even harder. It wasthe last thing anyone envisioned for me. But God had a different plan for my life. And who knows what kind of plan He has for you? Maybe you have tried to get your life together. Maybe you�re still searching for answers. You�ve been trying to fill the void in your life with anything and everything, butnothing satisfies. God holds the missing piece. You won�t find it in your pursuits or in anything this world has to offer. But you will find it in a relationship with God. The missing pieceis a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. And He will change you from the inside out. --------------------------- TheOpened Prison �The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach goodtidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.� (Isaiah61:1) The Lord Jesus appropriated this beautiful verse of the prophet Isaiah to Himself, preaching from it one day in the Nazareth synagogue and proclaiming: �This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears� (Luke4:21). Note that He came to preach the gospel to the meek, not the arrogant, and to bind up the brokenhearted, not the hardhearted. He also came to set the captives free. This was not, however, to deliver the Jews from Roman bondage as many had hoped, but a far greaterdeliverance. In the Hebrew, the phrase �opening of the prison� is only one word (a doubled word), and it occurs only this one time in the Old Testament. When Christ quoted it in the synagogue, He actually expanded and interpreted it as follows: �recoveringof sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised� (Luke4:18). The �prison� that Christ came to open is evidently a spiritual prison, a binding of the soul, a blinding of the mind. �If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed� (John8:36)�free from the bondage of sin, translated �out of darkness into his marvelous light� (1Peter 2:9). There was also another prison, a very real prison, deep in the heart of the earth to which He came. While His body slept in the tomb, His spirit descended into Hades where the spirits of all who had died in faith were awaiting Him, and �when he ascended upon high, he led captivity captive, and...ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things� (Ephesians4:8, 10). HMM -------------------------- He�s in Complete Control - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. �Ecclesiastes 3:1 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/hes-in-complete-control/- Listen I don�t know about you, but I constantly look at my watch throughout the day. What time is it? What time are we supposed to be there? How much time will it take? Time is a part of our lives. It�s inescapable. That is what Solomon was talking about when he wrote, �For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven� (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT). We find two important words in this verse: �season� and �time.� The Hebrew word for �season� refers to a fixed, definite portion of time, while the word for �time� refersto a beginning or a starting period. When we put those words together, we see that Solomon is telling us that God has appointed everything that comes into our lives for a specific purpose. God knows just whento bring things in, and He knows how long they should last. The things we experience are not random events that float in and out of our lives. Rather, they are specific events that God has chosen, and they are timely and purposeful.This includes the good times that we experience and the bad times we experience. And in retrospect, we�ll see that many of the bad times will turn out to be good times. That�s because it is through those so-called bad times that we learn some of life�smost important lessons. We also will recognize that we�re not in charge of our lives. God is. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we come under His protective care. This means God is fully awareof everything that happens to us. God is always paying careful attention to the smallest detail of our lives and is in complete control of all circumstances. There�s a season for everything. We�re not victimsof fate or dumb luck. God is guiding and directing our steps.