Loving Jesus Style

  Scripture:  Psalm 42:1–2 "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." —  Devotion : You know what thirst feels like. Not the casual kind where you think about grabbing a glass of water sometime soon. Real thirst. The kind that crowds out every other thought until it gets satisfied. The kind that makes everything else irrelevant. That is the image the psalmist reaches for. A deer that has been running — hunted, exhausted, desperate — panting for water with everything it has. This is not a polite religious interest. This is need. Raw, urgent, consuming need. Here is the hard question. Does that describe you? Most of us would have to admit that we go long stretches without truly thirsting for God. We fit him into our schedule. We give him our leftovers — the tired minutes at the end of the day, the distracted half-attention during a Sunday sermon. We are not panting. We are not desperate. ...

  Scripture: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." — Isaiah 53:6 Devotion: Sheep are not complicated animals. They do not scheme or plot. They do not rebel with great dramatic flair. They simply... wander. They put their heads down, find a patch of grass that looks good, and drift. One step at a time, one distraction at a time, until they look up and the shepherd is nowhere in sight. Sound familiar? Isaiah does not say some of us have gone astray. He does not carve out exceptions for the especially devout or the theologically trained. All we like sheep—every one. The word is total. The scope is universal. There is not a person who has ever lived — apart from one — who has not turned to his own way and wandered from God. And here is what makes that so insidious. We rarely feel like we are wandering. We feel like we are making reasonable choices. Sensible priorities. U...

  Scripture: "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit." — Romans 8:5 Devotion: Let's be honest. Most of us live as if we are primarily physical creatures, with a vague spiritual dimension somewhere in the background. We manage our diets, protect our schedules, pursue our hobbies, and scroll our phones — and somewhere in the margins, if time permits, we squeeze in a little prayer or a few verses of Scripture. We have it exactly backward. You are a spiritual being. That is not New Age language. That is the testimony of Scripture. God breathed life into Adam. He regenerated you by his Spirit. He sealed you, indwells you, and is actively conforming you to the image of his Son. The Spirit of the living God is not an add-on. He is the defining reality of who you are in Christ. So why do we treat him that way? Paul draws a sharp line i...

  Scripture: "And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." — 1 John 5:11–12 Devotion: We live in a world that cannot stop talking about life and yet remains deeply afraid of death. Entire industries are built on the promise of longer years, better health, and preserved youth. And yet, for all of our striving, the mortality rate remains stubbornly fixed at one per person. Every human being who has ever drawn breath has faced the same horizon. Into this universal condition, the Word of God speaks with extraordinary clarity and calm. Eternal life is not a philosophical idea or a comforting sentiment. It is a gift — and like every gift, it has a Giver. John is unambiguous: this life is in God's Son. It does not reside in our moral effort, our religious sincerity, or the accumulated weight of our good intentions. It is located in a Person. ...

The Letter to Philemon is the shortest of Paul's epistles and one of the most personal documents in the entire New Testament. Written during one of Paul's imprisonments — most likely in Rome, though Caesarea and Ephesus have also been proposed — the letter addresses a specific, delicate situation involving three individuals: Paul the apostle, Philemon, a wealthy Christian slave-owner, and Onesimus, Philemon's runaway slave. The Setting Philemon was apparently a prominent member of a house church, likely located in Colossae, and was personally converted through Paul's ministry. He was known for his love and faith toward both the Lord Jesus and the saints, and Paul speaks warmly of the refreshment Philemon's generosity had brought to fellow believers. Into this relationship of mutual affection and spiritual debt, Paul introduces a matter requiring considerable grace on Philemon's part. Onesimus had fled from Philemon — possibly having stolen from him in th...

  Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:11-13 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. Devotion: With these words, Paul turns our attention to the most essential truth of the Christian life: everything begins and ends with Christ. He is not simply part of the foundation, nor one option among many. He is the foundation—solid, unchanging, eternal. Anything built on another base will eventually crumble, no matter how impressive it looks in the moment. Paul’s imagery invites us to think about our lives as a construction project. Every choice, every habit, every act of obedience or disobedience becomes part of the structure we are building. Some materials are durable—such as gold, s...