It’s Audio Devo Day! I am up and running again with a new computer, got this recorded for you just in time 🙂 Enjoy here, with ministry time at the end:
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“For the word of God is living and active…” (Heb. 4:12, ESV).
Several years ago, Holy Spirit gave me a charge. It was one of those moments when He took a verse from the Bible and made it mine. Out of Isaiah 8:12, He very clearly commanded me, “Do not dread.”
The only problem was, in that particular season of my life, it felt like there was a whole lot to dread. I did my best to live out the directive He had given me, but I was painfully aware of only being partially able to fulfill it.
In retrospect, I have learned something essential from that experience. I now see and understand that His command began immediately to do a deep work in my heart, the moment He gave it to me. The command itself was, and is, power. He had injected power into me by the very act of commanding. As I persevered and held onto His word, it was at work in the core of me. Little by little, day by day, month by month, that rhema from His heart was transforming me into a person free of dread.
Now I have come to recognize something critically important: He hadn’t expected me to be able to fulfill His command perfectly when He first delivered it to me. Rather, He was inviting me to begin to engage with it, and with Him… in an ongoing process that was going to make me increasingly fearless, by small and very gradual increments.
How about you? Is there a particular directive in Scriptures that you know Holy Spirit has highlighted for you personally… but you are just not quite there yet? Does it feel discouraging to read those words in the Bible, and feel like you are not adequately living up to them?
The Comforter wants to greatly encourage your heart today. He wants to relieve you of a lot of unnecessary pressure. He wants to reassure you that it’s His job to get you there. His word is living and active. Once He deposited it into your spirit, it immediately went to work. Even if you can’t yet see all the fruits of the process, be assured that it has begun, and amazing things are going on deep inside of you.
Continue to engage with that word that He gave you. Meditate on it, speak it over yourself as often as you can, chew on it, think about it, and pray about it. It’s working. It really is. With perseverance over time, you will see the mind-blowing finished product wrought by the hand of the Master! He who began the good work in you will be faithful to bring it to completion!
“Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4, NIV).
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Has there been a Scripture that seemed really daunting to you, to be able to fulfill or live up to?
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