Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship | Jan 9-15, 2011
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Discipleship, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation
Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship is a daily resource designed to help you find direction in your walk with Christ. It includes a ‘Compass’ (a daily reading), a ‘Map’ (a brief comment to aid your understanding of the reading), and an application section called ‘Journey.’
Saturday, January 15, 2011 A NEW SELF (Part II) ————————————————-
Compass :
Colossians 3:5-11 ‘You…have put on the new self….’
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Map :
God created us in his image, but sin, which characterizes our ‘old self,’ marred that image and defaced it. But the ‘new self,’ the person we are in Christ, ‘is being renewed…in the image of its Creator’ (v. 10).
Journey :
When we ‘put on’ the new self, it is like choosing what we wear each day. In fact, verse 12 says that we are to ‘clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.’ What are you planning to wear today? Is it time to change into something more suitable?
Tomorrow: Grace Sufficient
Friday, January 14, 2011 A NEW SELF (Part I) ————————————————–
Compass :
Ephesians 4:17-24 ‘…Put on the new self….’
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Map :
Just as there is an old creation and a ‘new creation,’ there is an ‘old self’ and a ‘new self.’ The newness we have experienced within is to be visible on the outside as well. The difference has to do with ‘deceitful desires’ (old self stuff) and a ‘new…attitude of your minds’ (vv. 22, 23).
Journey :
What are your deepest desires? Are they deceiving you by promising what they cannot deliver? Try putting on ‘the new self,’ the self you are in Christ, the self ‘created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’ (v. 24).
Tomorrow: A NEW SELF (Part II)
Thursday, January 13, 2011 A NEW CREATION ————————————————-
Compass :
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 ‘…If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.’
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Map :
There is an old creation, and there is ‘a new creation,’ an old order of things and a new order. In the old order, people are alienated from God, and misery reigns. In the new order, people are reconciled to God, and righteousness reigns. What makes the difference? The key words are ‘in Christ’ (v. 17). Those who are ‘in Christ’ are the ‘new creation.’
Journey :
Verse 20 says simply: ‘Be reconciled to God.’ God has removed all obstacles and ‘in Christ’ has cleared the path between him and you. All you have to do is fall into his embrace.
Tomorrow: A NEW SELF (Part I)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 A NEW BIRTH ———————————————-
Compass :
John 3:1-8 ‘No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Map :
Change from within, not just change from without: this is what is required to ‘enter the kingdom of God’ (v. 5). We ‘must be born again’ (v. 7); that is, we must have not only a physical birth but a spiritual birth as well, if we are to be in God’s family.
Journey :
Our spiritual birth is no more our doing than was our physical birth. We don’t believe in order to be ‘born again’ (v. 3); we are born again, and then we are able to come to faith. Even faith is a gift from God. Have you received this gift? Do you want to receive it?
Tomorrow: A New Creation
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 A NEW HEART ———————————————–
Compass :
Ezekiel 36:24-28 ‘I will give you a new heart.’
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
Map :
Again, we find the people of ancient Judah scattered among the nations and homeless because of their sins. But God promises to bring them home, to cleanse them, and to replace their ‘heart of stone’ with ‘a heart of flesh.’
Journey :
Examine yourself for hard-heartedness against God. If you find in yourself resistance to his will or resentment toward his ways, ask him to give you a heart of repentance and one that delights in his will and his ways. If you find in yourself an openness toward God and responsiveness to his ways, give him thanks and ask him to intensify these attitudes.
Tomorrow: A New Birth
Monday, January 10, 2011 A NEW COVENANT ———————————————–
Compass :
Jeremiah 31:31-34 ‘I will make a new covenant.’
31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the LORD.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Map :
The people of ancient Judah will go into exile for having broken their covenant with God. But God promises ‘a new covenant.’ It will not be in the form of an obligation imposed from the outside but, rather, an inclination expressed from within.
Journey :
Is your religion one of merely do’s and don’ts, external demands that leave you weary and depleted? Or, is your relationship with God one of the heart so that you obey God not because you have to but because you want to? Ask God to write his law on your heart.
Tomorrow: A New Heart
Sunday, January 9, 2011 A NEW BEGINNING ————————————————-
Compass :
Isaiah 43:18-19 ‘I am doing a new thing!’
18 ‘Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.’
Map :
For the people of ancient Judah, ‘the past’ was a story of failure and judgment. They were uprooted from their homes and forced into exile because of their sins. But now God says, ‘I am doing a new thing!’ (v. 19). God is ‘making a way in the desert’ for the people to return home. He is making ‘streams in the wasteland’ (v. 19). This is a new beginning, a fresh start. What was lost is regained; what was destroyed is restored.
Journey :
What areas of your life are like a ‘wasteland’? Ask God to transform these aspects of your personal reality. Ask God to do ‘a new thing’ in your life. Count on God’s grace, and make a new beginning.
Tomorrow: A New Covenant
Photo Credit: ‘Finding Direction’ by Shane Mayer
January 8, 2011 at 10:09 pm
[…] In addition to each Sunday’s message, I am providing a daily devotional guide, which I am calling Your COMPASS for the Journey…on the PATH of Discipleship. The COMPASS will be available each Sunday in print format and daily on this site. […]