BAGGAGE - Week 2
Daily Scripture Readings
Monday: Galatians 5:16-21
Tuesday: Proverbs 27:6
Wednesday: Galatians 6:1-6
Thursday: Galatians 6:7-10
Friday: Hebrews 10:19-25
Saturday: Hebrews 10:26-31
Sunday: Hebrews 12:1-3
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You are a great and mighty God! We ask today that you would show us our bad baggage–the things in our lives we don’t need to be carrying. Show us the sin in our lives that so easily entangles. Kind Father, give us the faith and confidence to lay this bad baggage at your feet, trusting that You have paid the price so that we can be free of it, forever.
In Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
DEVOTION:
Some of you may know that I spent a year of my life serving overseas as a missionary living out of a backpack. When you are constrained to that amount of space what you pack becomes really important. Packing the wrong things or too much of something, could mean you don’t have the space/weight you need for something else that is new or good. Packing too much means you experience the painful and tiring reality that your pack is heavier (sometimes a lot heavier) than it needs to be. Whether in travel or life in general, what you pack and the baggage you carry with you is deeply important.
One way of thinking about bad baggage–the stuff we don’t need to be carrying–is recognizing it as sin. It’s not fun to talk or think about sin, particularly our own sin–it’s much easier to talk about other people’s sin. It might even seem easier to identify others’ sin than our own–”Hey you don’t need to be carrying that!”
First, we need to take sin seriously in our own life. In Hebrews, it talks about how sin “so easily entangles”. Sin, anything which separates us from God, quickly becomes a wedge which drives us further and further away from God and the ways He would have us to live. Bad baggage is one way of looking at sin. Putting sin in this perspective helps us realize we have a habit of taking things on–baggage we were never meant to carry. The call of the sermon writer of Hebrews is clear–throw it off. Lay down the bad baggage and leave it, so that we can focus on Jesus.
Secondly, we need to recognize that God welcomes us into community in part so that other people can show us our blind spots and help love and encourage us as we grow in grace, wholeness, and the character of Christ. At its best, this process is full of the fruit of the Spirit and truly transforms a culture and a community. When was the last time you took stock with the Lord on the things you were/are carrying? Are there some things you need to lay down? Do you have people around you that love you enough to say something hard and loving to you?