Welcome to this Come to Jesus Daily Devotional. This week have had a loose theme of seeking rest and help from God. Today, we finish by recalling the command to keep on being filled with the Spirit.
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‘Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Ephesians 5:18)
Recently I was looking at some people on their phones and I tried to remember what young people did together before they had phones. This sounds silly, seeing as there were no mobile phones when I and my friends were young, but I had to seek to recall what we did with the hours we spent together. Many people seek to ‘be filled’ with the information and communications that come from their phones. It seems to take priority over the people that they are with. This ‘half-attention’ must be having a detrimental effect on friendships. We all have to ask ourselves, what am I seeking to be filled with? Do I have a distracted and splintered relationship with God? Am I truly seeking a deep relationship and filling with The Holy Spirit?
There are so many other things - like alcohol mentioned here - that we can be ‘filled’ with. Our lives are littered with the debris of things that offered empty promises, and for a while, we gave ourselves to them. Are we too busy to be filled with the Spirit?
It’s always the most important things – which tends to be people! - that get neglected as we allow our calendars to be filled. There is no app/gadget that can shortcut the requirement that we give quality time to important things and people - the most important person being The Holy Spirit.
Today’s text urges us to Be filled - ‘go on being filled is a better translation. As we constantly eat and drink in order to live, so we are to repent - re-think - of thinking that we can live without the Spirit. When we talk about receiving strength and rest from God, we must never forget that this is intimately bound up with The Holy Spirit. God’s power is a person! Power from God is the presence and actions of The Holy Spirit. Whatever metaphors there may be - water, wind, fire, breath… - it’s a person we are dealing with and it’s a person who fills and strengthens us. Here are a couple of quotes that speak so inspiringly of the kind of heart attitude that we, surely, want to have:
“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” (Psalm 63:1-2)
“Then Moses said to him, ‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?’” (Exodus 33:15-16)
Can we say of the Spirit, “earnestly I seek… and thirst for…” Do we, like Moses, know that nothing but the presence of God distinguishes us from all the other people…?
How we start the day sets the tone of that day. If at all possible, let’s begin each day by spending quality time communing with and being filled with the Spirit. That would make a world of difference. You could use Ephesians 5:18 as a guide to help you to be filled with the Spirit. I Encourage you to memorise it so that you can rehearse its themes constantly.
Jesus invites us to ‘come to me and drink’, with the promise is of ‘rivers of living water’ flowing from within us. May this promise stir in us thirst and faith in order to come to Jesus and ‘go on being filled’. As we finish, I encourage to take 5-10 minutes to pray through the words of Ephesians 5:18:
‘Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Ephesians 5:18)
Community group notes and study
1. Notices
It might be good to begin with notices. Please share from this week’s Church News.
2. Icebreaker
How has God been speaking to you from His Word this week and how has this helped you?
3. Worship together
Let’s begin our time together by lifting our eyes and hearts to worship our great God. Perhaps you have readings and songs that you would like to use together. Let’s be open to the gifts that the Spirit wants to give in order to encourage one another.
4. Study and pray together
Our message on Sunday followed the theme of rest. We can seek rest in the wrong places and we can become burnt out and so hide and run away from the pressures of life. However, if we listen to God regarding a wise approach to work and rest, and if we truly seek to draw our rest and strength from Him, we will thrive and be a blessing to many.
Please read Exodus 35:1-3 and Genesis 2:1-3
Did God speak to you about anything specifically from Sunday’s message?
What would you say these passages teach us regarding a wise balance of work and rest?
It’s interesting to see that, in Exodus 35, He reminds people of the six-and-one principle before going on to task them with the hard work of making The Tabernacle. What are the principles that we can learn from this?
Please read Hebrews 4:1-10; How is the Sabbath command (of Exodus 20:8-11) fulfilled in Christ? How do you ensure that you keep this kind of sabbath?
Please read Matthew 11:28-30; How do we, or how can we, seek to live in the good of this promise?
SIV - How will a godly and wise balance of rest and work ensure that we remain faithful in Serving, investing and InViting?
SIV - Do we have any stories of how we have ‘Served, Invested, and inVited’ recently?
SIV - Spend some time together talking and praying about who and how you are seeking to bring your community to Jesus.
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