Day 5
Day 5 gives us a powerful secret to eliminating hurry, rest, and rest a lot. Something the world does not want for you…
Devotional Point 4 today: Look for little Sabbath moments today…
Scripture 4 today: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.” Hebrews 4:9-10 NIV
Reflection 4 today: The word for rest here is also translated as “completion“. This is an important concept because the world we live in has no sense of completion in anything. Everything we finish is a step on to the next things we need to finish, so the concept of “finish“ has been reduced to meaningless. The world wants you to embrace “the next big thing“. When we are committed to becoming a Talmidim, we look all the time at beginnings and ends that He presents us with, and rest in them…
Question for the day: How is tiredness affecting my experience of Jesus’ kingdom?
Other Notes: I hope you have enjoyed these last 2 devotions from John Mark… Tomorrow we start on a 7 day journey through our “purpose”, I think you will find it very interesting. Invites out later today…
Day 4
Day 4 talks about peace as a “thing”, not the absence of conflict as the world has convinced us…
Devotional Point 4 today: hurry is of the devil; slow is of Jesus…
Scripture 4 today: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” Colossians 3:15 NIV
Reflection 4 today: we have grown up in the world that he has given us an idea of “peace“ as the absence of conflict. Certainly that is the case between nations and has come to be the same between individual people as well. However, “peace“ is a real thing, it is something that we are commanded to take up and put on. So how does that happen? Well for the most part, it happens through prayer, prayer for a specific piece in a specific location within a specific situation. Always specific…
Question for the day: Can you simply do nothing? Just be? When you have peace, it is not all that hard to do nothing, in the doing of nothing it’s not in an and of itself peace…
Day 3
Day 3 brings up the most revolutionary point we will experience, the presence of the moment.
Devotional Point 4 today: presence to the moment…
Scripture 4 today: “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” John 16:24 NIV
Reflection 4 today: Bringing our full presence to each moment is definitely something we have not heard in the church, but it was Jesus predominate way of living. When we do that, and it must be done deliberately, for the most part we have not been taught that this is a “thing”… When you decide to bring your full presence to each moment, then you give God a chance to work on each of those “moments” and that brings total joy to each of us…
Question for the day: what do you need to do to bring your full presence to each moment today?
Day 2
Day 2 cuts to the “chase scene” on how to eliminate hurry, just listen…
Devotional Point 4 today: It takes an enormous amount of time to love well.
Scripture 4 today: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,” James 1:19 NIV
Reflection 4 today: there is very little listening in the world we live in today. For the most part, people simply wait their turn to speak don’t actually listen to anything. Listening requires us opening our hearts and minds to the speaker and attempting to understand not just what they’re saying but why. The facts of what they are saying are fairly easy to distinguish and deal with, but the “why“ is a whole another matter. The “why” is the bedrock of relationships…
Question for the day: How do hurry and busyness rob me of the capacity to love? They cause me not to listen…
Day 1
Day 1 of our new series gets us to look at how we can learn to slow down…
Devotional Point 4 today: hurry is incompatible with life in Jesus’ kingdom
Scripture 4 today: “Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.” Matthew 9:19 NIV
Reflection 4 today: this is one of the few occurrences of a miracle that is featured in three of the four gospels. The first most important point about this is that when Jesus saw the need He “got up” at once someone had reached out to him, right away He went with him. The second point is the head along the way, he stopped to heal this woman. In the other accounts we can see that He actually spent quite a bit of time with her before going to heal Jairus daughter.He was deliberate but not in a hurry.
Question for the day: What would it look like for you to slow down today? I would make much more propgress at everything…
