Gleanings From The Word

Category: Christian Living

  • “Follow Your Heart? Not Biblical Advice 

    “Follow Your Heart? Not Biblical Advice 

    follow your heart or follow God - which path will you choose

    There’s a common piece of advice out there. It simply says “Follow Your Heart!”

    It sounds so simple, so warm and fuzzy. It sounds incredibly wise. After all, if you truly follow your heart, what could possibly go wrong? It’s the key to enjoying life.

    There’s only one problem with it. It’s absolutely ungodly advice.

    Here’s what the Bible teaches about the condition of the human heart.

    “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

    We are fallen beings with a sin nature. Left to our own devices, we will choose anything over the God who loves us. We’ll pick darkness over light more often than not. We’ll choose short-term pleasure over long-term growth. We will hurt others to get what we want.

    Following your heart is dangerous. It leads straight down the broad highway to hell and destruction. It promises things that can never be sustainably delivered.

    Our fleshly nature is flawed. We need to be guided by the Holy Spirit and the Word. The LORD is our Creator, Jesus our redeemer and the Holy Spirit our indwelling guide. God loves us to an unimaginable degree, and He knows far better what is good for us than we do.

    Even after we’ve been born again, we struggle against our flesh and the desires of our hearts. Paul put it this way,

    For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Romans 7:15-18

    Believers must trust the Spirit to guide us. We need the Word to teach us and the church to hold us accountable.

    In the path of righteousness is life, And in its pathway there is no death. Proverbs 12:28

     “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow, and the way that leads to life is constricted, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13-14

    Don’t follow your heart. Let His path guide you. Allow Him to change your desires into the desires of His heart, He will never lead you astray.

    May the Lord guide your steps.

    Be blessed 

    Kevin 

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    SUMMARY

    This devotional challenges the popular but unbiblical advice to “follow your heart,” contrasting it with Scripture’s warning that the human heart is deceitful and cannot be trusted as a guide. It calls believers instead to be led by the Holy Spirit and the Word, walking the narrow path of righteousness rather than the broad way that feels natural but leads to destruction.

    KEY POINTS

    The heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9) and even believers wrestle with their flesh, as Paul describes in Romans 7 

    “Follow your heart” sounds wise but actually leads down the broad road to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14) 

    True guidance comes from the Holy Spirit, the Word, and the church, not from fleshly desire

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  • Tribulation Produces Perseverance

    Tribulation Produces Perseverance

    perseverance- you dont always see what's happening

    I have a scar on my right hand from a job I worked in my twenties. I will not bore you with the details, but the short version is that I did something careless, something sharp moved faster than I expected, and the rest is biology. What I remember most is not the moment it happened. It is the weeks after, when the wound was closing but not closed, when it itched in a way that made you want to crawl out of your skin, and when the doctor told me that the itching was the tissue knitting itself back together.

    The discomfort was the healing.

    I have thought about that a lot over the years, because it is a remarkably accurate picture of what God does with suffering and our times of waiting.

    Paul does not tiptoe around this. We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope (Romans 5:3-4).

    Read that slowly, because it is easy to skim past what Paul is actually claiming. He is not saying suffering is fine because it will be over eventually. He is saying suffering produces something. Actively. Right now. In you. The tribulation is not an interruption to your growth. It is the means of it. The gap is where God does His best work.

    That is not how we usually feel about the hard seasons. We forget that tribulation produces perseverance.

    We feel like we are falling behind. Like everyone else is moving and we are stuck. Like God has either forgotten where He put us or decided we can handle more than we actually can. The gap between where we are and where we thought we would be by now can feel less like a workshop and more like a waiting room with no magazines and no news on when your name will be called.

    But here is what Scripture will not let us do. It will not let us call that gap wasted time.

    Hebrews 12 puts it plainly. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith(Hebrews 12:1-2).

    Two things in that passage that are worth sitting with. First, the race is set before us — not chosen by us, not designed to our preferences, not adjusted for our comfort level. It is set. Second, endurance is not something you summon from inside yourself. You run it with your eyes fixed on Someone outside yourself. The moment you look away from Him and start measuring the distance you have left, the legs go.

    Perseverance, in Scripture, is not optimism. It is not telling yourself it will get better and pressing on with clenched teeth. It is obedience in the dark. It is continuing to do the next right thing when you cannot see what it is producing, because you trust the One who can.

    James says it this way. Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).

    Perfect and complete. That is the finish line. Not comfortable. Not unscathed. Complete.

    The gap between who you are and who God is making you is not evidence that something has gone wrong. It is evidence that something is still going on. The wound is still closing. The tissue is still knitting. The discomfort you are feeling right now may be exactly that — the feeling of becoming.

    I will not tell you the hard season you are in is easy, or that it is short, or that you will understand it on this side of eternity. I cannot promise any of those things, and I would not insult you by trying.

    What I can tell you is what Scripture says. That it is not random. That God wastes nothing. That the same Jesus who is the author of your faith is also its perfecter, and He does not start things He does not intend to finish. Tribulation produces perseverance

    Keep going. Not because you can see the end. Because He can.

    Be blessed,

    Kevin

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  • Every Member Is Necessary — 1 Corinthians 12

    THE BODY NEEDS EVERY PART — INCLUDING YOURS

    I have a friend who has not been to church in three years. He has his reasons, and some of them are legitimate. He was hurt, and the people who hurt him should have known better. But somewhere along the way, staying home became a habit, and the habit became a conviction, and now he will tell you he does not need the church to follow Jesus.

    I love him. And I think he is wrong.

    Not because church attendance is a rule to follow. Because he is a member of a body that is missing a part, and so is he.

    Paul does not leave us much wiggle room on this. Just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12). He is not describing a meeting you go to. He is describing an organism you belong to. Those are not the same thing, and the difference matters more than we usually let ourselves admit.

    Here is the part that should stop you if you have ever felt like your contribution to the church was minor. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary (1 Corinthians 12:21-22). Not helpful. Not appreciated. Necessary. That is Paul’s word, not mine.

    If someone has told you, by their words or just by the way they treated you, that you do not have much to bring — that your gifts are small, your role is replaceable, your absence would barely be noticed — Scripture is flatly contradicting them. The parts that look weaker are the ones Paul calls necessary. The ones that feel least visible are not optional.

    But let me say the harder thing too.

    Some of us are physically present and functionally absent. We show up, we sit, we leave, and we have arranged things carefully so that nobody really needs us and we do not really need anybody. We have been hurt before, or we are private people, or we just never got around to going deeper, and now the habit of distance has hardened into something we have started calling preference.

    The body feels that absence too, even if nobody says so.

    God does not tend to grow us in the quiet of our own company. He grows us through each other. Through the person who says the thing we did not want to hear. Through the one whose need shows up at an inconvenient time and asks something of us we did not plan to give. Through the Sunday morning conversation that turns out to be exactly what we needed and had no idea we were walking toward.

    That is not an accident of community. That is the body working the way it was designed to work.

    If the church has wounded you, I am not asking you to pretend it did not happen. Wounds in the church are real, and they leave marks. But the answer to a broken expression of the body is not to live permanently outside the body. It is to find your place in it again, imperfect people and all, because imperfect people are the only kind there are, and God has chosen to do His work through them anyway.

    You are not a guest in this body. You are a member of it. And somewhere in it, there is a function that belongs specifically to you, that nobody else can fill in the same way, and that the rest of the body is waiting on whether they realize it yet or not.

    My friend knows all of this. We have talked about it more than once.

    I am still praying he comes back.

    Kevin

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  • Purpose in the Process: Why God Takes His Time with Sanctification

    a narrow trail atop a mountain stretching as far as the eye can see - the long road to holiness

    I’m not a big fan of process; I like instant results. Unfortunately, God’s timing seems a process to us. It’s a long, narrow road that isn’t always easy to follow. 

    Becoming a Christian is quick and simple. When we become believers, our sins are forgiven, the Holy Spirit moves in, we are justified and have the imputed righteousness of Christ.

    Becoming Christ-like, that is, the process of sanctification, is a lifelong process. It’s the day-by-day, moment-by-moment choices that lead us to be made like Jesus. 

    One source describes it this way: “Sanctification is the process by which believers are set apart for God’s purposes and are progressively transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. It is a work of God’s grace that begins at the moment of salvation and continues throughout the believer’s life. Sanctification involves both a definitive aspect, where believers are positionally sanctified in Christ, and a progressive aspect, where they grow in holiness and obedience.”

    It’s easy to get frustrated along the way and quit. We face the challenges of temptation and sin. Sometimes, it’s just plain hard work, and progress seems slow.

    C. S. Lewis wrote about the student who is tempted to quit his Bible reading because he hasn’t been perfectly consistent with it:

    “No, he doesn’t quit. You don’t expect to see a drastic change overnight. But he continues to work at it. Some days he misses. Occasionally, he makes sinful choices that really set him back. But he stumbles along, developing the skill of Bible reading and getting better and better at it. After a week nothing looks that different. After a month, you can kind of tell. After a semester, there’s noticeable change. After 5 years, he’s unrecognizable. Have you been struggling? Are you tempted to give up? Don’t do it. Get back and try it again. Little by little, “you are turning the central part of you…into something a little different from what it was before” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

    There must be a purpose in the process, or God would have just skipped it altogether. His goal in the process is laid out clearly in Paul’s writings.

    And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified. Romans 8:28-30

    It can be a long journey. It’s going to take our entire life to get there. When we do arrive, what a time that will be. We will have been fully sanctified – set apart for God, made Christ-like, and be ready for life ever after with the one who loved us enough to die for us.

    Press on, my weary companions. Keep your eye on the prize. When you fall, get back up.

    It will be worth every moment of struggle, hardship and effort.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God) 

    Kevin 

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    SUMMARY

    Salvation happens in a moment, but becoming Christ-like is a lifelong process of sanctification that God uses purposefully to conform us to the image of His Son. Though the journey is slow and hard, it is worth every struggle — press on.

    TAKEAWAY

     Justification is instantaneous; sanctification is progressive and lifelong 

    God has a purpose in the process — conforming believers to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30) 

    Falling short is not the end; the call is to get back up and keep pressing forward.

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  • A Lesson From the Lilies – no need to worry

    A Lesson From the Lilies – no need to worry

    I snapped these tiger lilies some years ago. I came across them in my photo file, and they brought a passage of Scripture where Jesus reminds us to trust God to mind.

    And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Matthew 6:28-30

    So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

    It’s a familiar passage. I’ve often seen it illustrated with beautiful white lilies. It’s true that many lilies are white, but the Middle East has a plethora of other colorful lilies as well. 

    It’s impossible to know for certain what species of lily Jesus was speaking of, or what his hearers pictured. In fact, it might not have been a lily at all. The word translated in our English Bible is the word שׁוֹשַׁנָּה, shoshanah in the Old Testament, and κρίνον (krinon) in the New. Either word can mean any of a variety of flowers 

    The image is likely far more colorful than we picture. The call to not worry doesn’t change if we change the flower. Jesus is making the point that is that even ordinary, fleeting field flowers surpass Solomon’s glory in their God-given beauty.

    We often skip by passages like this because they are so familiar. Yet, it’s worth stopping here to meditate.

    If God put that much care and beauty into simple flowers, how much more does He care for us? We were designed to be in eternal fellowship with God. Just stop and think about that concept for a moment.

    It’s profound. Who are we that God should love us that much?

    If God loves us that much, what do we have to worry about in the long run?

    There is great peace and joy in knowing we can trust God to guide us through whatever we face. It’s humbling to imagine that He cares for us that much.

    It’s no wonder that the Psalmist could write… What is man that You remember him, and the son of man that You care for him? Psalm 8:4

    Trust God. He has it all under control.

    Be blessed 

    Kevin 

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    SUMMARY

    The “lilies” Jesus pointed to were likely far more colorful than the familiar white lily, and that vivid image sharpens the point. If God clothes fleeting wildflowers with beauty that surpasses Solomon’s glory, how much more does He care for us, made for eternal fellowship with Him?

    TAKEAWAY

    The flower Jesus referenced may have been any number of colorful wildflowers. The image is richer and more vibrant than tradition has led us to picture. 

    God lavishes extravagant beauty on simple, short-lived field flowers. His care for us, designed for eternity with Him, is all the more staggering. 

    The familiar passage is worth stopping to really sit with. If God has this covered, what do we have to worry about?

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    Right belief or right living? It’s both!

    Beautiful roses, one of my favorite flowers.

  • # Right Belief Must Become Right Living

    Recently, I slammed my hand in a door. I’m ashamed to admit that a stream of pre-Christian expletives came out of my lips. By and large, I’ve done a good job of removing those words, but I can still slip. There are times when what I do or say doesn’t align with what I believe or who I profess to be.

    Theologians have two words for this, and you do not need a seminary degree to understand them. Orthodoxy means right belief. Orthopraxy means right living. For most of church history these two words have walked together, because they were never meant to be separated. You cannot claim one and discard the other and still call it biblical Christianity.

    Scripture is not gentle about this. What use is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but has no works? Can that faith save him? Faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself (James 2:14, 17). That is not a suggestion tucked in a side verse. James is asking us to look honestly at whether our lives back up what we say we believe.

    Before this goes somewhere it should not, let me be clear about what this is not saying. We are not saved by our good works. It is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). Nothing about right living earns you a place at the table. But the very next verse will not let us stop there either. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). The works do not save us. They are what saved people were made for.

    This is where orthopraxy actually shows up, not in grand gestures but in the ordinary texture of a life. It is patience with the person who tests you twice in one day. It is honesty on the tax form nobody is checking. It is showing up for the friend whose crisis is inconvenient for your schedule. James puts it plainly: prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves (James 1:22). A faith that only ever lives in your head has not yet become the faith Scripture is describing.

    There is a warning built into this too, and it cuts the other direction from where we might expect. Jesus said not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you (Matthew 7:21-23). Right belief without right living is not a small inconsistency. Jesus treats it as evidence that something never took root at all.

    So orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not in competition, and they are not optional extras for the especially devoted. They are the two halves of one whole life. Sound doctrine without a changed life is a faith that talks and never walks. A changed life without sound doctrine is a house built on whatever feels right that year. We need both, and Scripture never offers us the choice to pick only one.

    If you have spent more time defending what you believe than living it out this week, that is worth sitting with honestly before God. And if you have been busy doing good without rooting it in the truth of who Christ is and what He has done, that is worth examining too. The way we live matters, not because it earns us anything, but because it is supposed to be the visible proof of what grace has already done.

    I still catch myself in moments like that door slam, where what comes out does not match what I claim to believe. That is not proof grace has failed. It is proof I am still being made new, and that the gap between profession and practice is meant to keep shrinking, not stay the same size forever.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God)

    Be blessed,

    Kevin

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  • The Unproductive Vineyard

    I have spent the bulk of my life living in Alberta, but, for a few years, growing up, we lived in the Lower Mainland.  I was recently reminded of that time when reading a passage about a vineyard in Isaiah’s prophecies.

    We didn’t have vineyards, but there were wild grapes aplenty for the picking. They were typically small and bitter, but we loved to pick and eat them. The vines were wild, untended and scraggly. Unlike the beauties you would find in a well-tended vineyard.

    Now that’s clearly a prophetic passage for the nation of Israel. God had provided everything they needed to produce a crop of righteous believers, but they failed. He sent them into exile in Babylon.

    Let me sing now for my well-beloved, a song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones and planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it and also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He hoped for it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones. “So now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between Me and My vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I hoped for it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones? So now let me tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall, and it will become trampled ground. I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, but briars and thorns will come up. I will also command the clouds to rain no rain on it.” For the vineyard of Yahweh of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah, His delightful plant. Thus, He hoped for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress. Isaiah 5:1-7

    God brought them back, and still no harvest was produced, so in 70 AD, they were dibursed again and scattered them across the globe.

    The fact that it was a prophecy for Israel doesn’t mean we can ignore it. The same principle can be applied to the church today.

    God has given us everything we need to produce a harvest. We have been born again, carry the imputed righteousness of God and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We have the Word in more languages, formats and translations than ever before in the history of the church. Here in the West, at least (for now), we are free to worship as we choose and to proclaim the gospel.

    There is a crop to be gathered. We know that Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Luke 10:2

    We need to look at our collective hearts. Are we faithful to the Great Commission? Are we exercising our gifts and talents to grow the kingdom? Do we even care that people are perishing and going to eternal damnation?

    It’s not my desire to beat anyone up over this issue. It’s simply a reminder to keep our priorities straight. As believers, God has expectations of us, and we have been provided with everything we need to get the job done. 

    Let each of us do our part to bring in an abundant and healthy harvest.  That part might be to seed, water or reap, but whatever part we have been called to, may we be faithful.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God) 

    Kevin 

    SUMMARY

    Drawing on Isaiah 5’s vineyard parable, this devotional traces God’s patient provision for Israel and their repeated failure to produce a righteous harvest. The application turns to the church: we have been given every resource we need, and the question is whether we are faithfully doing our part in the Great Commission.

    TAKEAWAY

     God’s expectations are inseparable from His provision. He does not demand what He has not supplied. 

    The harvest is real and waiting. The shortage is not opportunity but workers willing to enter the field. 

    Every believer has a role, whether seeding, watering, or reaping. Faithfulness in your assigned part is the standard, not someone else’s calling.

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  • God Wastes Nothing

    God Wastes Nothing

    God wastes nothing. This looks like just a grey stump with a few turkey tail mushrooms on it. It is totally uninspiring and highly likely to be overlooked.

    Yet there is a lot going on.

    There are fungi spreading through the wood, slowly breaking it down and releasing nutrients back into the soil. Moss covers the surface, holding moisture and creating conditions that support a surprising variety of living things.

    Within the decaying wood, countless insects and other small creatures find food and shelter. Beetle larvae tunnel through softened wood, springtails and woodlice feed on decaying material, and spiders, centipedes, and predatory beetles hunt among the cracks and crevices. Much of this activity remains hidden from view, yet it forms a complex food web.

    Birds feast on the insects. Salamanders, frogs, mice and snakes may find refuge here. The decay feeds the earthworms under the soil.

    The stump serves as a miniature nursery for future growth. By retaining moisture and nutrients, it provides an ideal place for mosses, fungi, and eventually seedlings to become established. What appears to be the end of a tree’s story is part of a continuing cycle in which death supports new life and sustains an entire community of organisms.

    In God’s economy, there is no waste. Everything serves to bring Him glory.

    Even our suffering, tears and disappointment have a purpose. I think it was Tozer who said, “When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it resolves a great deal of anxiety.”

    When we become aware that God is using everything to make us more Christlike, it can make us less anxious. Our struggles, in Christ, are not God’s condemnation (Romans 8:1). God is always for us (Romans 8:32). He designs all our circumstances for our everlasting good (Romans 8:28). Everything in my life can direct us to Christ. Indeed, it should.

    In those times of anxiety and stress, we can remember Paul’s words.

    I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in abundance; in any and all things I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundanceand suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Romans 12:13

    There is nothing we can’t endure, knowing that God wastes nothing. Jesus holds us fast and will use all our struggles for good.

    Praise His holy name

    Kevin 

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    SUMMARY

    A seemingly lifeless grey stump teems with hidden activity — fungi, insects, birds, and seedlings — forming a complex, self-sustaining cycle that mirrors how God wastes nothing in our lives. Just as decay in nature serves new life, our struggles, anxieties, and disappointments are purposefully designed by God to conform us to Christ and work for our everlasting good.

    TAKEWAY

    God’s economy wastes nothing — what appears dead or purposeless in nature (and in our lives) is actively being used to sustain, nourish, and generate new life and growth. 

    Our suffering is not God’s condemnation but His design; He is always for us (Romans 8:1, 32) and orchestrates every circumstance for our everlasting good (Romans 8:28). 

    Contentment and freedom from anxiety are possible in any circumstance when we recognize, as Paul did, that Christ is our strength through both abundance and need (Philippians 4:12–13).

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  • The Calling

    Image of a wayerfall with the text "THE CALLING"

    Every human being has a purpose. Above and beyond that, every Christian believer has a divine calling from God. We are literally on a mission from God. There are specific callings to certain ministries, but every believer has a calling on their life.

    In Ephesians, Paul speaks of our calling. Ephesians 1:3-12 is a blessing that traces salvation from God’s eternal plan to its realization in Christ.

    In the balance of chapter one, Paul prays that we will understand the depth of our calling. In chapter two, Paul speaks of our calling into one nation, Jews and Gentiles alike, saved by grace and faith in what Christ has done.

    In chapter three he asks that believers be strengthened inwardly, rooted in love, and able to comprehend the vast dimensions of Christ’s love that surpass knowledge. The section closes with a doxology, affirming that God’s power is able to accomplish far more than human expectation.

    It is God’s power that enables us to deal with the practicalities of the calling.

    Starting in verse 4, Paul reminds us how to live out our calling as children of God, called to serve Him and bring Him glory.

    Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond Ephesians 4:1-3

    In a short list, reminiscent of the Fruit of the Spirit, Paul reminds us of how we are to live. It’s Spirit-powered and impossible under our flesh to do.

    It’s a more powerful list than any checklist of dos and don’ts. It cuts right to the heart of the matter, our changed nature. Walking in a way worthy of our calling causes us to evaluate every situation through the lens of Jesus and live appropriately.

    It runs counter culturally to everything the world declares. It’s radical, upside-down thinking. It stands out in a crowd, pointing people to the God who changes us.

    None of us has yet reached the point of living this way every moment, but it is a process that’s being worked in us. God promises to finish it.

    Are you living a life worthy of your great calling from God?

    Be blessed
    Kevin

    A related post: Our quest, a holy calling

     

    Key Takeaways

    • Every Christian has a divine calling from God, as outlined in Ephesians.
    • Paul emphasizes understanding our calling and living it out in unity and love.
    • The calling requires humility, gentleness, and patience while reflecting Christ’s love.
    • Living worthy of our calling is a transformative process that God will complete.
    • Evaluate your life: Are you living in a manner consistent with your calling?

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  • Newborns

    Newborn infant - newborn Christian

    All the ladies of the small church and not a few of the men were gathered in one corner. It was easy to see why… One of the women of the church had brought in her newborn baby, born just days before. Everyone was oohing and aahing over this little miracle.

    You know the scene. You’ve seen it many times in many locations when a newborn appears. The same thing happens when the new grandmother pulls out the photographs of the latest addition to the family lineage.

    I have a confession to make. I’m not much of a newborn baby fan. I’m getting better as the years go by, but I’m still not very comfortable around them.

    Babies are small, and they used to terrify me. I was that afraid I was going to drop them or hurt them. Babies seem so very fragile to me. 

    Babies are wrinkly and funny colored. Often, heads are misshapen, and their coloration is funny. There is just something spooky about them. Now, I know none of that is rational; in fact, it is quite silly, but it’s true.

    I was present when both of my sons were born. Even though I’m not much of a baby fan, there was something beautiful about them. There was something beautiful about my wife. She had just been through hours of labor and wasn’t looking quite like a supermodel, but she and my sons were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

    Now I’ll admit I was biased, because after all, they were my sons and my wife. Still in my eyes, they were beautiful beyond description. I still worried about dropping them or hurting them in some way, and I wasn’t as comfortable as perhaps others in the same situation might have been.

    I was also present within minutes or hours of many of my grandchildren’s births. I love them dearly, and they were almost as good-looking as my own boys.

    I’m a lot more comfortable when babies reach the age when they are moving around better, talking a bit and have insatiable curiosity. They look more like people, and I’m not so worried about hurting them.

    There is that precious age when they think you know things and ask you questions. You get adoring smiles when you can answer them. I don’t get a lot of those when I tell things to teens or other adults.

    There is a newborn baby that I love to be around, though. When someone comes to know Jesus, when they are born again, they are a new creation.

     Therefore, from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17

    New Christians have a zeal, a passion for Christ that many older saints seem to have lost. They hunger for the Word and they long to know Jesus more.

    Newborn believers actually want to go to worship services. They don’t go because someone told them that they had to attend.

    Newborn believers tell everyone about Jesus whether they want to hear about it or not. I don’t have numbers to substantiate it, but I believe that for the bulk of the faithful, they talked to non-believers about Jesus far more as new creations than they do as battle hardened saints.

    I know I am generalizing, and you may well be the exception to the rule. We can probably all thing of a believer who never lost that zest for Jesus.

    Still, my hearts desire is for people to know Him more deeply and to be transformed into His image. That’s one of the reasons I love to write about Him; to preach and to teach Bible studies.

    It isn’t that I have somehow “made it”, I am a long way from being a fully sanctified believer. I have my struggles like everyone else and my own sin to wrestle with. It isn’t that I know more than everyone else. 

    It’s simply that I know the zeal of someone who could never have been redeemed under his own merit who has been set free by Jesus. I know it isn’t going to happen but I want everyone to have that moment of freedom, of rebirth.

    If you haven’t yet been born again, I pray you would come to know Jesus. If you have been born again, my prayer is that your fire for Jesus never be extinguished and that you grow ever deeper in your relationship with Him.

    Be blessed

    Kevin

    Kingdom Diversity

    Summary

    A newborn baby at church prompts reflections on both the beauty and fragility of new life and the excitement people naturally feel around it. The piece then shifts to the spiritual parallel of being “born again,” celebrating the passion, joy, and eagerness that new believers often have in their relationship with Jesus.

    Takeaway

      New life, whether physical or spiritual, carries a sense of wonder, hope, and transformation.

      New Christians are often marked by enthusiasm for worship, Scripture, and sharing their faith with others.

      The closing message encourages people to come to know Jesus and to continue growing spiritually without losing their zeal.

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