2025-02-09 Spiritual Formation (Part 2)

We are continuing our series, / / Following Jesus, and last week David did a great job at opening this conversation of Spiritual Formation. And today we are going to continue that conversation. What does it mean to experience Spiritual Formation. Or Sanctification. This process of becoming more like Christ.

This past week I was thinking.

Genesis 1:27 tells us, / / So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

image there being in God’s likeness, His resemblance.

But Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT), the prophet speaking for God, says, / / The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

So, wait, we’re the image bearers of God, but our hearts are desperately wicked? What’s going on here?

Well, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, / / Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The New Living Translation says it this way, / / And the Lord - who is the Spirit - makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

/ / Humanity in sin doesn’t reflect God’s image.

I’m not saying humanity is not MADE in God’s image, but that in sin we do not reflect that image. Which is the very reason Christ came because we cannot be made righteous without God.

So there is a process. That’s what we are talking about here.

/ / Be WITH Jesus // Become LIKE Jesus // DO what Jesus did

So, we have a problem, and we have a solution.

/ / The Human Condition - The Problem

Have you ever met someone that loves God, loves church, loves the things of God, seems to be very connected in that way. They go to church meetings, prayer meetings, they spend time reading the bible, they spend time praying, but when you interact with them they don’t always seem so loving. In fact, sometimes they seem mean, irritable, anxious and even quick to anger more than quick to love.

Like, they say they’re a Christian, but why are they so angry?

They say they follow Jesus, but their lives don’t look like it.

I’m not calling anyone out here ok. I’m talking to the reality that I’m 42 years old, I grew up in a Christian home, going to church since I was a baby, been in ministry for nearly 25 years, and I still have issues in my heart, my mind, my soul that I need God to heal, to lead me out of and to transform in me.

I still get to wake up everyday and as David said last week, offer my life as a living sacrifice to the Lord. And that’s what he wants is my acceptable worship to Him.

So why do we still struggle with those things?

Anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, fear, secret sin…

/ / It’s not that we don’t WANT to become like Jesus.

/ / Or even that we’re not TRYING to become like Jesus.

/ / Often times, it’s that we don’t know HOW to become like Jesus.

There’s an old saying, / / “Practice makes perfect…” I’m sure we’ve all heard it and even said it before. Kelley and I have a pastor friend up in Canada that used to say,/ / “It’s not practice that makes perfect. It’s perfect practice that makes perfect…”

meaning, / / it doesn’t just matter THAT you practice, it matters HOW you practice.

If you aren’t being shown HOW to practice the thing you want to do in the right way, you can end up learning how to do it wrong, and then be stuck in a pattern that you have to unlearn. And yes, that can happen in our walk with Christ as well.

So, Jesus says in Luke 6:40, / / “A disciple (apprentice) is not above his teacher (rabbi), but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher (rabbi).”

There is a process of becoming FULLY trained, and Jesus doesn’t just tell us to be like him and then leave us to make that happen in our own strength, but he actually invites us to be his disciples and follow him, like there is a training program that we can follow to actually become like Him as He leads us.

But, / / to enroll in the training program of Jesus requires us to live with a whole new intentionality in our following of Him.

THAT is / / God’s Solution - Intentional Spiritual Formation

You’ll keep hearing this: Spiritual formation is not a Christian thing. It’s a human thing! We are all being formed, the question is simply “WHAT are we being formed by and WHO is influencing our lives, forming us into who we will become?” It is happening all day, everyday, there are forces at work to influence you to become a certain way.

/ / There are four areas of our lives that we are formed by:

Habits

Relationships

Stories

Environment

And that happens over time and through our experiences.

Habits & Relationship are really in our control for the most part, but the stories around us and our environment can feel completely out of our control and like we don’t even have a choice in what is influencing us!

Sometimes we can go weeks, months, even years, just waking up, going about our day, ignoring some things, doing other things, not really thinking about it and eventually we end up realizing that we have been formed in some particular way, come to believe some certain thing, or been shaped politically, ideologically, financially, spiritually.

We have been formed.

And it took time.

A significant amount of time.

And it’s pretty strong stuff.

The way we are formed into who we are is not just undone over night either.

Therapy wouldn’t be an industry if it only took 1 session to fix people, right?

John Mark Comer uses this metaphor. Think of yourself as a rock, that has been formed over years and years to be a particular shape, maybe by the weather, or being hit with a hammer, whatever the case may be, the things of this world and direct influence from people, or it’s environment, have shaped this rock into something, but now you want this rock into a perfect round ball, let’s say that is being formed into the likeness of Christ.

If the issue is that we’ve already been formed by these things around us… and maybe deformed is a better word - shaped by the ugliness of sin, and shame, and the ways of the world, then at some level formation to the way of Jesus is actually counter-formation.

To be formed to become like Jesus requires this intentional, thoughtful, and conscious way of life to counteract the many forces that work to form us to be like the world.

So, these four areas, habits, relationship, stories and environment all need a counter-formation in the way of Jesus.

/ / To counter our habits, we need the practices of Jesus.

This adjusts the direction of our heart towards the way of Christ and opens our inner world to the power and presence of the Spirit of God toward change.

/ / To counter our relationships, we need the community of Jesus.

This is other members of His body, where we travel the way of Jesus side by side with other apprentices, other disciples, and we are loved into people of love.

Remember what Jesus said in John 13:34-35, / / “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

/ / To counter the stories we believe, we need the teaching of Jesus to fill our minds with truth.

This is the reading and study of scripture.

/ / To counter our environment, we need to live aware of and in connection to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the power at work in our lives and the ultimate source of all transformation.

/ / This is really what David was saying last week. The Holy Spirit does the work of transformation as we are faithful to the practices of Jesus Christ, living in the love of the Father.

These are the counter practices that form our souls slowly over time.

I’ll say it again. We ARE going to be formed. And Jesus’ desire for your life is that we are formed to become like Him. But this will require us to organize our very lives, our days, around intentionally following him and finding deep joy in our everyday lives with him.

/ / 1. Habits Form Us

/ / habit - a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

Scrolling on Social Media

Reading the news multiple times a day

Shopping for things we don’t need

Secret sin, or addictions that we can’t seem to let go of.

If these things are doing something to us. Making us more lustful, anxious, or greedy, then one of the first steps we have to take is to become more intentional about our habits that we currently have.

The way to overcome bad habits is not to simply just try to not do them. If you try to lose weight by just cutting out the bad stuff, but don’t focus on the good stuff, eventually, you’ll cave.

/ / You overcome bad habits by giving your life to good habits that change you.

This is where the Spiritual Practices come in.

In reorienting our habits from what is conforming us to the way of the world, we employ habits that transform us. And these are beautiful new habit-forming activities that are based on the lifestyle of Jesus himself. They slow our busy lives down so we can connect with Jesus AND each other. They make room for God to come in and transform our lives from the inside out.

We’ve mentioned some of them so far, but they are:

/ / Sabbath, Prayer, Fasting, Solitude, Generosity, Scripture, Community, Service and Witness

It’s through these new habit-forming practices that we set our WHOLE LIFE before God and open deeper and deeper layers of ourselves to His loving presence and power. As we do what we can do, offering our mind and body to God, he does what we can’t do, form us into people of love, joy and peace.

/ / 2. Relationships Form Us

Our view of the world

Our value system

Our daily behaviors

If these are all shaped more by our daily peer group, our family of origin, or our office culture, than they are by Jesus and the Kingdom of God, then it is absolutely essential that we harness our relational wiring, meaning our connection points, how we are relationally connected and influenced by those around us, to become more like Jesus through community.

/ / Community is the incubator for all spiritual growth.

An incubator is a controlled environment for the care and protection of premature or unusually small babies. Meaning, we practice in community so we can live unaffected by the world out there.

And that fact, let’s just be completely transparent here, is actually WHY most people don’t often engage with community. It’s people we don’t know, wanting to get into the business we don’t even want the people closest to us to even know or talk about.

I was listening to a podcast the other day that asked the question, “Why are churches not more like AA meetings?” Essentially asking the question, “Why are people in church not vulnerable and open to admitting their inadequacies more openly and publicly? Why do we not have times of confession, of openness and baring our souls to one another?”

If Paul says that it is / / in our weakness that we experience God’s strength.

And James says that / / if we confess our sins one to another we will be healed.

Then why do we feel like we need to put up a front, a wall, a facade of who we are?

As much as we might not like to admit it. As much as it might feel awkward and uncomfortable.

/ / One of the most crucial and critical pathways to Spiritual Formation - to becoming more like Jesus - is our interaction with the body of Christ.

Proverbs 27:17 says, / / Iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

John 13 again, the world will know we are disciples of Jesus by our love for one another. Not our tolerance of each other’s issues and sin, but our love - true, genuine, self-sacrificing and others-preferring, helping, bonding, and building together love like Jesus loves us!

Community is where our rough edges are chipped away. Our deepest wounds are healed. It is the school of love. 1 John 4:20 says, / / If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Now, that’s actually two parts, and I can already hear the voices saying, “Well, hate is such a strong word. I think I’m good, I don’t hate anyone…”

But that’s not really the qualifier.

Not hating is just the qualifier for not being called a liar.

If you say you love your God but hate your brother you are a liar.

BUT, the second part is the actual work and invitation of Christian community.

For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

There’s a big difference between hate and love, and the real issue here is genuinely loving, not just anti-hating.

So, we have this opportunity as a community to love each other into loving better. We have the opportunity to forgive when we make mistakes, which produces a harvest of love.

And this goes both ways. I receive your love so I can fully experience and learn to love. I receive your forgiveness when I make mistakes so that I can heal as well.

We give and receive love, forgiveness, patience, kindness, long-suffering, being built up and carried in our love for each other.

Living in community is not easy, but it is where the deepest transformation happens.

/ / 3. Stories Form Us

We are constantly surrounded by Cultural Narratives:

Hollywood

The Education system

Social Media

Politics

How do we become more intentional about the stories that we believe?

We fill our mind with teaching, with truth.

Remember, / / Jesus was a teacher, he was a rabbi.

Of course we love to talk about the signs, the wonders, the miracles - and we should and must expect Him to move in our lives today. And of course we never lose sight of the fact that Jesus’ eternal redemptive work is the cornerstone of our faith. But let’s just take a second and remind ourselves of who Jesus was and what he said when he walked on this earth.

What does John 15 say?

/ / (4) “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

What does it mean to abide? Is that purely spiritual? Is that purely experiential?

/ / (10) “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…

/ / (7) “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you…”

Look at the bookends of the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:19 (NIV), / / “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 7:24-25, / / “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practices is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

I think sometimes we can become so worked up about slipping into a ‘works’ mentality, that we don’t want to talk about the reality that following Jesus takes real, intentional, discipline!

Paul encourages his churches in the same way:

Colossians 3:16, / / Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom…

2 Timothy 3:16-17, / / All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teachings, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man (or woman) of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

So, we fill our minds with the teaching, the truth of what Jesus taught. Through his teachings and his parables he was working to fill the minds of his followers with his thoughts on the Kingdom of God.

Through his teachings he introduces us to the Father.

Through his teachings he gives us an expectation for the Spirit of God.

So, how do we do this?

Of course reading the scriptures, reading our Bible, ourselves.

Receiving Teaching

Preaching

Theology

Meditation

Contemplation and more…

What we focus on is ultimately the person we become.

If we are living out of lies, or false stories, the stories of this world, then we have to get rid of those so that we can believe the truth of Jesus. The reality is the truth cannot share space with a lie. One of them must win. And as humans, we hold on to what we currently believe to be true, whether it is the truth or not.

Last week David taught out of Romans 12:2, / / Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

There are actually two really important parts there.

/ / Do not be conformed to this world…

/ / Be transformed by the renewal of your mind…

The greek word translated / / conformed is syschematizo and it means, to fashion alike, to conform to the same patter, to fashion yourself according to…

According to what? / / This world…

The English definition of / / conform is, to comply with rules, standards or laws, to behave according to socially acceptable conventions or standards. To be similar in form or type.

So, what is Paul’s warning?

/ / The world is going to try and get you to think a certain way, to believe a certain way, to act a certain way.

Don’t Do It!

You want to know how the early church evangelized?

They didn’t really have to

Their lives were so dramatically different than that of the world that they simply had to be alive, following the way of Jesus and people looked at their lives and said, “How is it that you are so different?”

That you have a different sexual ethic

That you have a different value on life, on family, on children.

That you have a different perspective on what is permissible

on getting drunk

on the language you use

on the types of parties you go to

where you’re willing to be seen or not

who you’re willing to hang out with

who you’re willing to be associated with

what kind of teaching, political, social, scenarios you attend or choose not to…

They were unwilling to be conformed to the way of this world.

We live in a world today where people in church focus so much on the fact that Jesus hung out with sinners, so they think it’s ok to live their best lives doing what they want, that they forget Jesus was Holy, Pure, and Perfectly without sin. AND he calls us to the same.

And the world Paul is talking to in Romans 12 isn’t all that different from the world we live in now. The cultural forces around us are not getting weaker, they seem to be getting stronger. At least more forceful, pushier, louder, more arrogant in their forcefulness.

Sexual deviancy, acceptability and promiscuity seem to be at an all time high.

The nuclear family is less ordinary and accepted

The definition of family, marriage, relationship, gender, all of it, completely under attack

The acceptability of infanticide, abortion…

What seemed to be common sense just 50 years ago is now seen as radical ideology

/ / Do not be conformed to this world.

“But, but, but, it’s what’s socially acceptable…”

That’s what makes you so different when you believe and follow the way of Jesus. Your life becomes the most dramatic witness there could be, because the darker the world around you, the brighter the light inside of you is visible.

You believe and live a certain way, and it’s by His way.

Listen to me, this is important: / / Uncompromising does not mean intolerant of people, it means unwilling to conform to their ways!

Do not be conformed. That’s the first part.

But then Paul adds, / / But be transformed by the renewing of your mind…

Notice that he doesn’t say, so be conformed. No, he says, be transformed. Different word.

/ / transformed [metamorphoo] means to change into another form entirely.

This is the same word that is used in Matthew 17:2, when Jesus takes Peter, James and John up on a high mountain and it says, / / And he was transfigured [metamorphoo] before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light…

How does this transformation take place? Paul says by the renewing of your mind.

/ / renewal [anakainosis] - a renewal, a renovation, a complete change for the bettter.

So, / / to become something different, we have to be willing to go through a complete change.

In our house we’re pretty big HGTV renovation show fans. Everyone seems to love demolition day. Just beat up the space and tear out all the old and ugly, and leave a nice, empty space.

But what’s the goal. The last 2 minutes of the show, when they bring the family back in for the big reveal.

What once was is no longer there. It has become something brand new.

To build something new in a space where something already exists, you have to tear down what already exists, so you can build in the new.

In the ways we have believed the stories of this world

where we have allowed ourselves, consciously or unconsciously to be conformed

there must be a tearing down, a complete renovation, removal, a demolition day of our minds, so that what Jesus says, what the truth of God is, can be built up in us.

What does a renovation of the mind look like?

Be willing to walk away from what you know.

Tear it down even.

If it doesn’t match what God says, get rid of it.

SO THAT, you can fill your mind and your heart with His truth, in order that the Holy Spirit can do a transformation in you that only the Holy Spirit can do.

How do you know if it’s something you have to get rid of?

Does it line up with Scripture?

Does it line up with the truth as God has said, not just that you think it is true.

Does it line up with the Teaching of Jesus, the teaching of Scripture.

/ / 4. Environment Shapes Us

Never forget that the Holy Spirit is God’s power inside of us.

As we order

our habits through the practices,

our relationships through community,

our stories through His teaching,

we open up deeper and deeper layers to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the last of these areas that shape us - environment.

This is a work of grace, not by anything we can accomplish on our own. This is the freely given, undeserved, action of God on our behalf; it is HIS capacity to make us into who we are meant to be and do what we were meant to do.

And the more intentional we become in practicing the presence of God as we employ these livable practices, the more God himself becomes our primary environment, our home.

This is what Jesus was saying in John 15, Abide in Me…

Abide essentially means to make your home in, to remain, do not depart.

There are two things necessary for our environment to shape us. The first is Time

/ / Time

What might be one of the most difficult parts in all of this is the element of Time.

If we look at all of / / Jesus metaphors about spiritual growth, they are slow.

Trees, Vines, Crops.

They grow over seasons and years.

Grape vines take about three years before they produce fruit.

Olive trees the same.

Eugene Peterson, probably one of the greater thinkers of our recent times, called discipleship / / “A long obedience in the same direction.”

Professor of Spiritual Theology, James Houston of Regent University says, / / “Spiritual growth is the slowest of all human movements.”

Much like physical growth, spiritual growth takes time.

And like practice it matters what you do in that time, it matters where you spend that time, it matters that you are giving your time to the presence of God, abiding in Him, allowing Him to be your environment.

So, that’s the first element of our environment, the second, and I know I said time might be one of the most difficult elements, but there’s one more. And that is suffering.

/ / Suffering

Jesus defined this as trials and tribulations.

When Paul says that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, what does he say will lead us to the will of God?

/ / “…that by TESTING you may DISCERN…” - Paul

It’s actually one word dokimazo, and it means to prove through examining and testing to scrutinize in order to see whether a thing is genuine or not.

It’s kind of like putting something through a stress test to see if it will hold up. Was the thing made properly to handle the pressures of the world we are putting it into? Think of all those product testing commercials you’ve seen.

Now, we have an 11 year old. I’m also in school. And what is the most common human response to having to take a test?

AVOID IT!

We do everything we can to avoid tests.

Avoid testing, avoid suffering at all costs.

I know, we don’t like it. And we don’t like the idea of a Christianity with trials and suffering. But this is part of the pathway to growth. It is actually the defining moment of our character formation.

Paul pre-empted this part in Romans 5:1-5, / / Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Now, that part sounds really good, right? Justified by faith, not by anything we could do…

/ / ‌Not only that… (oh good, he’s continuing)… / / but we rejoice in our sufferings…..

Wait a second…rejoice in our sufferings???

/ / …we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

So, I’m no greek scholar, but the word that Paul uses in Romans 5 is the same word that Jesus uses in John 15, and so I thought, I better check out that word suffering, make sure it’s not just a bad translation here…

/ / thlipsis - pressure, affliction, anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble…

Sorry, looks like this is what it means.

The serenity prayer says, / / Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace…

How? How is that a pathway to peace?

Because it produces endurance,

which produces character,

which produces hope,

which reminds me of God’s love,

which brings me to a place of peace…

But this is important: / / it matters how we respond or react to these times of suffering. Moments of testing can either form us, or deform us.

It can make us soft and gentle, as we give ourselves to the process of Jesus working in us through the Power of the Holy Spirit, OR it can make us hard, cruel, and judgmental.

It can open us up to God, OR it can close us off.

How we respond to these times of suffering will define that.

I was listening to an interview with Tyler Staton the other day. He’s the pastor of Bridgetown church in Portland, OR, and he said, when we read Psalm 23, do we read it as wanting to be rushed through the valley of the shadow of death because we are uncomfortable there and don’t like how it feels being there, or do we recognize that whether we are in the valley of the shadow of death, OR by the streams of living water, our desire should be that the Rod & Staff of our Good Shepherd bring comfort to us?

Rod & Staff are actually representative of the leadership, discipline, provision, and protection of the shepherd over the flock!

Do I want to just be rushed past the uncomfortable, or do I want to learn in the season of hardship what will make me stronger, and, if done right, ultimately lead me closer to His presence?

Suffering, hardship, trial, testing, difficulty, the bible talks about all of these things, and not only do they form us, but they forge us into the love and peace and joy of Jesus.

/ / When we intentionally open our pain and suffering to God, not only will God meet us in it, but He will work in it to form us to be more like Him.

Here’s the thing about Spiritual Formation:

/ / We are in control of our actions, but we are not in control of our formation.

The Serenity Prayer starts with, / / “God, give me the grace to accept with serenity the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Said another way:

God, what is it that you will do in me that I cannot do in myself?

What is it that you’ve asked me to do, to prepare me for what You want to do?

Please, please, please, help me know the difference

so that I’m not fighting what I don’t need to fight

trying to do what only you can do

and so I can live a life of simplicity and intentionality in following You and Your way!

Let’s be honest, if it were up to us, this transformation would be fast, easy, and painless.

But in reality, our spiritual formation, like any other formation worth experiencing, is a long and hard journey of narrowing our lives toward the way of Jesus and His Spirit’s transforming power in our lives.

The ending of the Serenity Prayer says this:

/ / Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that You will make all things right, IF I surrender to Your will. So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with you forever in the next.

Closing

So, where do we go from here?

Two weeks ago we closed and talked through a practice of following Jesus, developing a daily prayer rhythm. It’s possible that in the pursuit of a new habit maybe you forgot one, or two, or most of the days. That’s ok. Habit forming takes a lot of reminders. Be kind to yourself, if this is new for you, then it might take time to get into this new rhythm for your life.

All I can say to you in that is keep trying. Keep making this a priority. Keep working to intentionally order your life around the practices of Jesus that we are talking through.

So, today we’re going to add another practice to this rhythm, but don’t worry, I think many of you are already doing this, but may just add this element.

Developing a daily prayer rhythm had four steps, if you remember:

/ / Find a quiet PLACE (preferably distraction free)

Remember the story of Suzanna Wesley, pull that apron over your head if you need too.

/ / Find a quiet TIME (if you can)

Early morning, or late at night when the house is quiet.

/ / Come to a QUIET place (internally)

Psalm 62:5, For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence…

Put your phone away, do your best not to hurry, and let the cares and worries of this world go. If you need to write them down, if your mind is prone to suddenly reminding you of all the things you need to do, simply write them down so your brain can trust that you won’t forget.

/ / Open your heart to God in PRAYER

You might pray the Lord’s prayer from Matthew 6.

You might pray the Serenity prayer, the prayer of St. Patrick, the Jesus Prayer, a psalm from the bible, or just your own desire and overflow of your heart.

And this is where we will add the next practice:

/ / 5. Daily reading of SCRIPTURE

So, maybe you’re already doing this, maybe you aren’t.

Sometimes, because I can get so busy I end up listening to scripture on my commute, which is wonderful. Absolutely fine. Bible is bible and it’s good for you.

But one of the things here is that we’re trying to slow down, be less busy, not more busy, ordering our lives around Him, giving dedicated time to God, not just where we can “fit Him in.”

So, in my own life, and I invite you to do the same, when you take this time to develop your daily prayer rhythm, and you’re connecting with the Spirit of God, then begin to read scripture from the Bible reading plan WITH the Holy Spirit.

Maybe just take one of the sections, and listen to the rest on your commute. Take the proverb of the day, or the OT section or NT sections. Allow Jesus to lead you in that moment. Give time and place for God to speak to you through Scripture, and along with scripture. You might notice something for the first time, or it might become fresh and new.

Jesus said the Spirit of God would lead us and guide us into all truth. He is the greatest interpreter of the bible there is.

I want to share a quick story with you as we head out in the reality of God using the word to encourage us.

As you know, a couple weeks ago my mom had a stroke. But let me tell you what God can do through Scripture.

The morning I found out about my mom’s stroke, BEFORE I found out, I had sat down to read the book of Daniel. Not because I felt some compulsion or leading of the Holy Spirit to read Daniel, it was for one of my college courses. I wasn’t being super spiritual or something. All that was different is that it was a Wednesday, which is our day of fasting and prayer, and in the morning on those days I spend time in the word of God and prayer.

I sit down, starting in chapter 1, the book of Daniel. And I get to chapter 3, where if you know the story, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are brought before King Nebuchadnezzar and threatened to be thrown into a furnace if they don’t bow down and worship a golden statue that the king had made of himself.

But it was their response to the king that stuck out to me. Daniel 3:16-18, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

It struck me so deeply that I highlighted it in my bible. I thought to myself:

God is ABLE to do all miracles, and yet, even if he didn’t do miracles, He is still the only one we worship!

It was only a few minutes later that I got the call from my sister saying that my mom had had a stroke.

As much as no one is ever fully prepared for a moment like that, I knew, immediately, God had prepared my heart through scripture.

God, YOU ARE ABLE…

And no matter the outcome, YOU ARE GOOD, and YOU ARE GOD. And I worship you. I thank you for your goodness. I honor you. You are God and there is none above you. Draw our attention and our focus to you, not the fear of sickness, not the fear of death, not the fear of what will be, but keep our focus on you. You are Able! You are worthy.

You can’t explain that one. It wasn’t like I felt led to that scripture in the morning and thought, “Wow, Holy Spirit really wants me to read Daniel…” No, Professor Christ wanted me to read Daniel…

But God speaks through the pages of His word to us!

It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Does that happen all the time? No. But if you never read scripture with the idea that God WANTS to speak to you through it, I can guarantee you that it won’t ever happen.

Spend time in prayer and expect God’s presence.

Spend time in Scripture and expect the word of God for your life.