Instagram Jesus Week 1: Devotional Day 4
DAY 4 – Thursday
Daily devotional
- Read
Mark 1:4-8
- Ask
This is a story of new beginnings. What new beginnings is God working in your life, or the life of those around you, at this time?
- Reflect
Mark 1:1 started by saying, “this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The message of God’s victory brought about many new beginnings. John the Baptist invites everyone to be a part of the cosmic new beginnings by starting their own new life with God by repenting—turning and going in the completely opposite direction—and being baptized, letting God cleanse you and claim you!
What new beginning is God working in your life?
Yesterday I was processing many changes coming in my life with a coach. He told me, “you need a discipline of slowing.” He knows I’m a woman of action; it doesn’t take me long to make a decision and go with it. So he encouraged me to fast—to not eat a few meals and instead, allow that time to carve out time for me to listen to God.
I’ll share more about some of those new beginnings on January 19-20. But the new beginnings and the need to slow are about more than what I do Monday to Sunday. I’m in a season of beginning to let God be the starting point of each conversation. I’m beginning to find silence welcoming—just the 5 minutes in the car that I don’t turn on the radio or make a call. It feels like the start of a new way of relating with God. (Get your own coaching on silence from Emily P. Freeman, here.)
As a LifeGroup leader, you may want to press in a bit when you get to this question. Don’t let them “get away with” talking about just a new routine or a new habit. Dig deeper to what feels new in who they are and how they relate to God as a result of that change. That took a bit more thought for me, and I suspect it will now for you, too. But it’s that deeper, heart-level conversation where Jesus really does the work of transformation. Let me encourage you not to settle!