Week 4, Day 3
Begin with 2 minutes of silence
Scripture : Ephesians 2:1-7
2 In the past you were spiritually dead because of your sins and the things you did against God. 2 Yes, in the past your lives were full of those sins. You lived the way the world lives, following the ruler of the evil powers that are above the earth. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to obey God. 3 In the past all of us lived like that, trying to please our sinful selves. We did all the things our bodies and minds wanted. Like everyone else in the world, we deserved to suffer God’s anger just because of the way we were.
4 But God is rich in mercy, and he loved us very much. 5 We were spiritually dead because of all we had done against him. But he gave us new life together with Christ. (You have been saved by God’s grace.) 6 Yes, it is because we are a part of Christ Jesus that God raised us from death and seated us together with him in the heavenly places. 7 God did this so that his kindness to us who belong to Christ Jesus would clearly show for all time to come the amazing richness of his grace.
Devotional : Coming Home
By Simon Nelson
Choosing to live the kind of life where we are filled by God’s grace to the point where it shines out of us for all around to see sounds like a no brainer. Who wouldn’t want to be filled with peace and love, and know that they were specially chosen for a seat at their Creator’s table? But in practice it is not that easy. Our sinful lives that we have left behind still tug and pull at us. We are not still fully committed to our earthly cares and worries, but not fully rid of them, either.
God has offered us a precious gift of the opportunity to be free of living only in the world. Just imagine it, at the end of our life after we’ve done everything we can do in this world, we get to keep going in a new creation and be fully in God’s presence. That’s a far more wondrous gift than anything we will receive throughout the rest of our life. But the truth is that we won’t always appreciate it. There will be times when we take God’s grace for granted, when all we want to do is sit down and exist within our own little world here on Earth, and the last thing that we want to think about at that moment is God.
However, be encouraged, because when you accepted God’s presence into your heart you became part of God’s family. Much like we are with our earthly families, we will not always be the ideal child while we are living in the family of Christ. Just like a persistent parent, God isn’t going to stop inviting us back. It’s an open invitation to us that doesn’t expire. Even if we have to come knocking on His door with a heavy heart because we’ve been so caught up in life we haven’t visited in way too long, we need to come home. God is our Father, He is the one who made us the way we are because He thought that we were someone worth spending eternity with. There is no greater love than that.
Question to Consider
What does it mean to you that God is calling you back to spend time with you?
Prayer
Our Father who is in heaven, holy is Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Close with two minutes of silence
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