Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to encourage followers of Jesus Christ to have daily time in which they intimately connect with the Lord Jesus. It includes an aspect of praise to God, some of how I sense the Lord speaking to me, and then a topic for prayer. My hope is that this blog will help you in three ways;

1. A balanced spiritual diet of Scripture reading - Using the lectionary readings for the day, this will give you a balance of passages from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the New Testament Epistles and the Gospels.Don't feel obliged to read all the passages ... unless you have the time and the inclination!

2. An example of Spiritual Journaling - I have committed to write this daily post, not for teaching purposes but as my daily spiritual journal, sharing what I hear from the Lord and how I experience Him with me each day.

3. An online discipler – One of the reasons that so many Christians do not have daily devotion is because they do not have a discipler. A discipler can help them build up this basic element of discipleship when they first become Christians. The best way for you is to have a discipler to walk with you for a certain period of time so that daily devotion become a good habit. Or, you may have a group of 2 or 3 people to encourage and be accountable to each other so that you won’t stop your daily devotion. I offer myself as your online disciple to walk with you daily to enrich your spiritual journey, trusting that you will in time, offer yourself to others.

So let us start this journey with Jesus our Lord . . . click here for today's readings

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Rejoicing and Mourning Together

Praise: Eternal, Saving God. "I give praise to you Father, 'the only God our Savior.' To You 'be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore'" (Jude 25)

Scripture: In Paul's letter to the Romans, our reading starts with the words, "let love be genuine". He then goes on to identify numerous characteristics of genuine love. In v15 he says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." Is my love that genuine that I find myself responding to other people's emotions with those of my own? Do we feel close enough connection that we own one another's emotional experiences?

This continues to be quite a journey for me as I learn to risk allowing my heart to be expanded in this way. I have lived too much of my life in a very self-reliant manner which has caused me to keep up some emotional barriers as a self-protection. Yet now the Holy Spirit is working in me to take greater risks, even though it will lead at times to being hurt. However, without that, we don't get to enjoy the benefit of emotional closeness and connection. It is the pursuit of relational intimacy with one another as a reflection of what the Father longs for with us, through His Son Jesus Christ. Continue to expand and heal my heart Lord that I may love as you love.

Prayer: Pray that God, who gives endurance and encouragement, will give us a spirit of unity with one another as we follow Christ Jesus so that with one heart and mouth, we may glorify the God and Father of our Lord. Pray that we would accept one another, just as Christ accepted us, in order to bring praise to God. Thanks God for His love which binds every virtue together in perfect unity.
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