Daily Devotional

A HIGHER PRIORITY

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Romans 8:14)

Two significant events in my life brought into clear focus the priority of relationship over achievement. Before being called into the ministry, I worked as an aerospace engineer on the Apollo program. I will never forget the day the lunar lander touched down on the moon. This bold headline dominated the front page of the Minneapolis Star: 'Neil Armstrong Lands on the Moon'. It was an achievement I was proud to be part of.

THE WILL OF GOD

If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself (John 7:17)

Knowing the will of God is not just a twenty first-century problem. People were struggling at the time of Christ. Some people were saying of Him, "He's a good man". Others were saying, "He leads the multitude astray" (see John 7:12). How could these people know whether He was leading them into truth?

DEAD TO SIN

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts (Romans 6:11, 12)

THE EFFECTS OF THE FALL

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12)

Unfortunately, the idyllic setting in the Garden of Eden was shattered. Genesis 3 tells the sad story of Adam and Eve's lost relationship with God through sin. The effects of man's fall were dramatic, immediate and far-reaching, infecting every subsequent member of the human race.

SPIRITUALLY ALIVE

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:11, 12 NIV)

When God breathed life into Adam, he was both physically and spiritually alive. Adam was spiritually alive because his soul was in union with God. We were never designed to be separated from God or to live independently of Him. We were born to be spiritually alive.

THE BELIEVER'S TENT

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7)

Biblically, life means to unite and death means to separate. When Adam became a living being, his soul was in union with his body. When he died, his soul separated from his body.

OUR ESSENTIAL IDENTITY

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (Genesis 1:26)

Adam was created physically and spiritually alive. He possessed eternal life from his first breath and enjoyed God's abiding presence in the Garden of Eden.

Furthermore, unlike the animal kingdom that operated by divine instinct, Adam was created in the likeness of God with a mind, emotions and will, giving him the ability to think, feel and choose. No other created being can make that claim.

CHILDREN NEED MODELS

A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40)

Your children need to see how you handle failure even more than how you handle success. If you make a mistake, you need to own up to it and ask forgiveness if the situation calls for it. If you don't model how to deal with your own fleshly responses, how are they going to learn how to own up to their mistakes and resolve them biblically?

WITH ALL PRAYER AND PETITION

With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints (Ephesians 6:18)

The mother of one of my seminary students was a psychic. She said to him once, "Jim, have you been praying for me?" "Of course I have, Mother". "Well, don't," she insisted, "because you're disturbing my aura".

SPRING-LOADED TOWARD THE SPIRIT 

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5:16