Day 21 - Sunday, November 1st
LIFE Journal
This Week's Memory Verse
Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:18
Devotional
Look at how far we’ve come over the last few weeks! Look back at Day 1. What did you think God wanted to show you? Did He reveal that or something completely different?
The danger in us dedicating a time like this to something as important as prayer and fasting is the fact that we can forget what God has shown us and go back to “normal”. It’s easy to get back to life as usual as the demands continue and the pace continues, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Hopefully through these past weeks, you’ve seen what God can do when you’re willing to focus your intention on Him. Jesus wanted us to see differently every day of our lives here on earth and He prayed a special prayer for those of us who would come to believe in Him well after His return to heaven:
“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” John 17:20-26 NIV
Jesus’ prayer was that we would be unified as a body of believers as a local church at The Exchange and in the Church as a whole. He said through that unified spirit, the world would know what we already do. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17 NIV)
The love of Christ is what drives us and it is His love for us that can motivate us to keep growing in the many ways He uses to mold us into His likeness. Tomorrow doesn’t have to be business as usual. Instead, tomorrow can be a new beginning in your life with Christ as you continue in the habits you’ve developed these past few weeks while showing a broken and hurting world the incredible hope a life with Jesus can offer.
Think On This Verse:
May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. 2 Peter 1:2-4
Ask and Answer:
What has God taught you these last three weeks? What do you think He wants to continue to teach you in regards to spiritual disciplines? How can uniting as a church show the world the love of Christ? How can you take what you’ve learned into the coming days and how can that give hope to those who don’t know Jesus?
The danger in us dedicating a time like this to something as important as prayer and fasting is the fact that we can forget what God has shown us and go back to “normal”. It’s easy to get back to life as usual as the demands continue and the pace continues, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Hopefully through these past weeks, you’ve seen what God can do when you’re willing to focus your intention on Him. Jesus wanted us to see differently every day of our lives here on earth and He prayed a special prayer for those of us who would come to believe in Him well after His return to heaven:
“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” John 17:20-26 NIV
Jesus’ prayer was that we would be unified as a body of believers as a local church at The Exchange and in the Church as a whole. He said through that unified spirit, the world would know what we already do. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17 NIV)
The love of Christ is what drives us and it is His love for us that can motivate us to keep growing in the many ways He uses to mold us into His likeness. Tomorrow doesn’t have to be business as usual. Instead, tomorrow can be a new beginning in your life with Christ as you continue in the habits you’ve developed these past few weeks while showing a broken and hurting world the incredible hope a life with Jesus can offer.
Think On This Verse:
May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. 2 Peter 1:2-4
Ask and Answer:
What has God taught you these last three weeks? What do you think He wants to continue to teach you in regards to spiritual disciplines? How can uniting as a church show the world the love of Christ? How can you take what you’ve learned into the coming days and how can that give hope to those who don’t know Jesus?
Prayer
Father, thank you for the journey through spiritual disciplines these past 21 days. Thank you for the ways in which this time will forever impact my faith. Keep doing the work in me as I continue to grow in my knowledge of you. Give me the discipline to engage in the practices that will draw me closer to you and remove all the unnecessary from my life. Let the days to come grow me in ways I could have never imagined. Use my pursuit of you to invite others into the greatest story there ever was.. In your precious name, Amen.