1 Corinthians 1:9 – God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ
THEME OF THE DAY: IT MUST BE SUSTAINED BY GOD’S LOVE. Let’s do two things around today’s nugget theme. First, meditate on the tremendous love and price paid by God to make us His children. Don’t go light on this thinking. Take a few minutes and ponder the Gospel. Go on a brief journey through Jesus’ life of suffering. Stare at Him on the cross. Look into His blood-stained eyes. Hear His first words from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). By now, we should be on our face in humble worship. We need to do this often if we want to keep the flames of His love roaring in our hearts.
The next thing we want to do is evaluate how passionate, disciplined, and diligent we are in our daily lives of seeking Him whom we just meditated upon and worshipped. Now this is not a spiritual “beat-down”. I am not a “sheep beater.” I know a disciplined time of seeking the Lord is hard. Life is hard. Life is busy. As I attempted to have my “quiet time” this morning, I fought off about five areas of distractions. This Christian life of growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord is difficult. There is a reason why the Lord Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14). Not everyone who says they are Christian are, and there are many who once professed faith, but have walked away. The landscape is full of spiritual casualties both in the church and outside. Being a Christian, a growing Christian, is not for the faint of heart nor is it a “spectator sport.” And there are times of great difficulty in that growth process. We know quite well this experience described by the Apostle Paul -“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:16-17). As hard as it is, we must come to grips that our growth in Christ is a personal responsibility to be exercised and for which we will give an account. Notice what Paul says – “Walk by the Spirit.” God doesn’t walk for us. We are commanded and responsible for each step.
So, how is that walk going for us? How are we doing when it comes to pursuing the Lord Jesus in Word, prayer, and obedience? Do we know Him better today than last year, last month, last week? Are we conforming more and more into His image as evidenced by the Fruit of the Spirit? As we meditate on these “self-diagnostic” questions, do not miss the first thing I asked us to do in paragraph one of today’s nugget – meditate on the love of God. Friends, if we don’t do that, then trying to do part two of my direction for us today will be done in the strength of self. It will be a duty, a ritual, a routine which has us reading the Bible, attempting some resemblance of prayer, and obeying more when we feel like it instead of by faith with delight. Without experiencing God’s love in Christ through meditation upon Christ, our Christian life will be a bunch of spiritual “have to’s” and lifeless as a corpse. Without the love of God controlling us, any spiritual discipline will be fruitless and lack sustainability; without encountering and being sustained by God’s love, any attempts in the Word, prayer, and obedience will not bring us into the pleasurable experience of today’s scripture.
If we truly want to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus, then spend a lot of time meditating upon His life of love from the cradle to the cross to the tomb and back to heaven. Only as we commit to this type of meditation will true growth begin. Everything in the Christian life is to be motivated by God’s love in Christ. It is the only power which will sustain and energize us for this hard thing called “The Christian Life.”
PRAYER: “Father, forgive me when I put other relationships ahead of my one with You, Your Son, and Your Spirit.”
QUOTE: “Christ must be the priority relationship we have in this life. The quality of all others rests on this one”