Beyond These Walls: Here We Go! Week 3 Devotional Day 6
DAY 6 – Saturday
Daily devotional
Read
Mark 4:30-34, Ezekiel 36:26, Psalm 32:8
Ask
What’s harder for you? Being proactive about partnering in the work of someone else’s spiritual growth, or surrendering control to let God be God with his part?
Reflect
Be honest, how did or do you feel about group projects in school? Personally, I didn’t enjoy them. I preferred taking on responsibility for the assignment myself. Pass or fail, I liked having the autonomy to carry out the work how I saw fit without the fear of disappointing or being disappointed by others.
If I’m not careful similar notions of independence creep into how I view my role in God’s kingdom too. I slip into faulty beliefs that God hands out his syllabus for kingdom living and we retreat back into our daily lives to bear the burden of the results. Questions like, “Have I done enough? Did I say the right thing?” riddle my conscience in those moments.
God’s kingdom doesn’t operate on earned grades or meritocracies, and that’s fantastic news for us. He is a loving father who has invites us into his family as heirs in his eternal kingdom. Try reading Psalm 32:8 again and imagine it spoken by a loving father. He is able and willing to allow us to carry the seeds of his kingdom and guarantees their growth. Are we willing to sow them believing God will do the growing in his timing?
In Mark 4 Jesus shares family secrets about his kingdom. He says our efforts to share God’s word will seem small and insignificant, but we can have faith knowing he’ll use them in mighty ways to grow his kingdom. No effort is too small, no role too trivial when we’re sending out God’s life-giving word into this dying world. It’s by his grace we’re saved and from his will our stony hearts are turned to flesh. In Christ, we’re invited to join the family business with all the joy of knowing his compounding returns will never fail.