Distracted - Week 3

Daily Scripture Readings

Monday: Revelation 2:1-7

Tuesday: Revelation 2:8-11 

Wednesday: Revelation 2:12-17

Thursday: Revelation 2:18-29

Friday: Revelation 3:1-6

Saturday: Revelation 3:7-13

Sunday: Revelation 3:14-22

Opening Prayer

Lord Jesus, I am in you and you are in me. There is a fear I have of waiting, and my union with you is conquering that fear in me even now as I pray. I want to become patient, and by this union with you, I will. I want to become more kind, and by this union with you, I will. I want to leave envy, arrogance, and pride behind me, and by this union with you, I will. In Christ Jesus, I pray, amen.

DEVOTION:

This Devotion entitled, “In Christ We Learn the Way of Love (Part 2)”, is taken from The Seedbed Daily Text, May 1st, 2024 By Dan Wilt:

Have you ever considered the patience of Jesus? Knowing his story was leading to a cross, he still patiently served his disciples and ministered to those who came to him. We never perceive that Jesus was in a rush, or biding his time to get to something else.

Have you ever considered the kindness of Jesus? Continually asked to do things, be things . . . to make things happen, we see him responding with clarity and grace even in circumstances where the needs seem to be overwhelming.

Then we see Jesus moving in contentment; we don’t hear envy or comparison with others in his words. Neither does he boast or exhibit arrogance.

With today’s section of 1 Corinthians 13:4–13, let’s repeat our exercise of inserting the name of Jesus in the place of love first, and then inserting our own names second as a declaration of our union with Jesus:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy, Jesus does not boast, Jesus is not proud.

[Insert your name] is patient, [Insert your name] is kind. [Insert your name] does not envy, [insert your name] does not boast, [insert your name] is not proud.

Because the Spirit of Jesus lives in you and me (Phil. 1:19; Gal. 4:6), we can be patient. When we say, “I am an impatient person,” we are contradicting our union with Christ. We may be well-meaning and may have grown up believing that self-effacing comments are a sign of humility, but we are not agreeing with God when we make them. Christ in you is patient, therefore he is transforming you into a patient person.

We can be kind. We can put a gentle hand toward the hearts of those who come across our path (in person, via text, or on social media). A feeling of outrage over what someone posts is no excuse for losing our cool and dehumanizing them with our language. “In your anger do not sin” (Eph. 4:26) we are told. Christ in you is kind, therefore he is transforming you into a kind person.

We can avoid envy, boasting, and pride. Envy tells us the lie that someone has it better than us. Who has it better than a beloved child of God? No one has it better. Boasting is what we do when we are insecure and attempt to heighten our reputation in the presence of another. Who has a higher reputation than Christ in us, and what child of God is desperate for someone to affirm us when Jesus himself affirms us as his own? And as for pride, Paul will only boast in Jesus, and in his own weaknesses (1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 12:9). A beautiful humility is the consistent posture of Jesus’s disciples in the world.

In union with Jesus, you and I can become the most loving people on planet Earth. We can do so not because we have it all together or because we have no weaknesses with which we struggle. We can become the most loving people on planet Earth because Jesus—the most loving person who ever lived and ever will—dwells in us.

THE QUESTIONS

Do you see yourself as naturally patient, naturally kind, naturally content, naturally elevating of others, naturally humble? If you answered yes on any one of these, wonderful! What area is Christ in you working on right now to make you more mature in other areas?