Chapter 2: Never 'another week'

Hey all!!

Hope you've had a chance to read and listen to the way Devoted is going over the next few months. I've had great feedback from the blog so I'm excited to write this next chapter. The truth is that as we move into this new season, God is revealing new twists and turns that bring more blessing, hope and more importantly, opportunity to grow even more.


I think it would be easy for us to see this growth and development as a corporate thing and remove ourselves from the challenge set before us, but just as it is with money (when you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves...), as we look at our own walk with God, Devoted will develop on it's own. I feel I could write be writing many verses during the course of this blog but in reality, I never want to steer too far from the verses in the last chapter. Psalm 1: 1-3. And today, this week, or whenever you read this, I want to focus on verse 2. I want to bring a revelation that hit me this week and it may get more intense before it gets smiley and wonderful, so stick this chapter through and hear it in the love and compassion it was written in.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,                                                                                                               
And in His law he meditates day and night.                                                                                                                  

This verse isn't talking about religiously dwelling over things we have done well or regretting over the things we have messed up on, it is saying that when we plant ourselves in God, it is a "delight" is following in the direction that God takes us in. So to take it into the context of this season, I believe that it is the individual that will make the difference and the individual relationships that we have with God that will push us further together. Because we won't always be in a meeting, but we will always be living our everyday lives and we will be having an everyday relationship with our everything, Jesus.

 Take the way we act when we come into a meeting. Are we excited to be there? Or will we 'get in the mood once there'? The reality of it is that we need to be bringing a spark in a gas filled room when we walk into THE SERVICE or CHURCH and not so much a dead fish being slapped onto a cold slate. No-one appreciates that. I'm just as guilty of anyone of this; but I can tell you this much. If you aren't getting what you want or need out of church. It's so very rarely the church. It's your expectancy level. The Bible talks of the way we act in Revelation 3:15... and it's not a particularly fantastic thought, that when we have an apathetic approach to CHURCH and our relationship with God, He wants to vomit us out...

 The Bible is the ultimate in encouragement and guidance and God doesn't put this challenge to us empty handed. When He directed these verses at the church in Sardis through John's writing, He continues by saying this in verse 20;

20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and  dine with him, and he with Me.                                                                                                                          

It's not an un-returnable situation and it's not a difficult thing to overcome. The truth is this, Jesus eagerly awaits for you to let Him back into your life completely. And as you do, He will enter in and bring all joy, peace and restoration where there was none. He wants us to rest in Him. Read the last few verses of the chapter, after verse 20 to see the true rewards of overcoming the things that make us 'lukewarm'.
As we return to Him and return to the quiet place. At home. On our journeys. Wherever we are, we will suddenly become that spark in a gas-filled room. Don't get apathetic and don't let this season pass you by, for we can be all that we can be in the days that follow.
Imagine a church that is made up of believers with uncountable stories and testimonies of what God has done in their lives every week.
Imagine the church that doesn't need to pump people up at the start of the meetings because the church is already pumped.
Imagine the church that is full of uncompromising, spirit-led people that refuse to settle for second best and pursue God with everything all week long.
Be encouraged, if you can imagine it - God can do it.
Let your imagination dwell on this verse, Psalm 92:13

13 Those who are planted in the house of the LORD                                                                                                     
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.                                                                                                               
14 They shall still bear fruit in old age;                                                                                                               
They shall be fresh and flourishing,                                                                                                                                     
15 To declare that the LORD is upright;                                                                                                               
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.