R³ Devotional - Day 293

Around this time, 15 years ago, with the youth group I belonged to, we did a play called “Take up your cross and follow me”. What I can recall from it, is how several young men and ladies in the story are trying to figure out in today’s world and in different social interactions the call Jesus made thousands of years ago: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” As the play would move forward, the main character realizes that being a Christian is not only about saying you are one, going to church on Sundays or being “religious” enough.  He realizes that Jesus is calling us to live a true, selfless, God honoring life.

In today’s passages, we can learn about how powerful Jesus is, his authority, his love for the people that followed him and desire to meet their physical and spiritual needs. How he despised the way Pharisees were so shallow, and he was not willing to stay quiet about it. We are reminded of his calling to follow Him daily to have less of us and more of HIM.

Real: Life Principles

• Jesus doesn’t stand arrogance and selfishness: By reading the passages, we can tell He was always warning others, even His disciples, on how vain, shallow, and out of place the Pharisees were. They had the Son of God right in front of them, “had all the knowledge and followed the rules”, yet their hearts were so far from God that they couldn’t recognize the Messiah.
  
  
• Jesus is calling us to live for Him: When we accept Jesus, we can’t live for ourselves anymore. Following Him means denying ourselves daily and asking more of Him into our lives. He is shaping our hearts, and honestly, when the potter is working, the clay can’t tell him what to do.
• 
  

Relevant: Life Applications  

• God must be your top priority: Sometimes, as believers, we think that accepting Jesus into our hearts and coming to church every Sunday is enough. But, during the week, our actions don’t show we are HIS people, as we are part of church, we don’t try to plug in and serve. We still have areas in our lives that we have reserved for ourselves and think we can handle them better without his help.
  When we decide to honor God and give him the right place in our lives, that’s when we are willing to take up the cross and follow. We are truly giving our lives to Him and letting Him be the commander in chief.
  
  
• Check your heart daily: The Pharisees, on the outside, seemed to be doing everything perfectly, yet Jesus in Matthew 16:4, compares them to an “evil and adulterous” generation. Ouch! That’s tough!  As we read these verses, we shouldn’t keep them as mere information the Bible gives us, but as a calling for reflection and that daily, we need to check our hearts.

Ready: Life Actions

• Take some time and ponder: Am I giving God the first place in my life? Am I letting THE potter shape my heart? Am I a true follower or just like the Pharisees' “shiny beautiful exterior” with a “stinky dirty interior”?

Psalm 139: 23-24 is an excellent passage we can pray as we reflect and study today’s verses:
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

God bless you ABC Family!