Insightful Musings on the New Testament
by
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67

Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.

Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray is following, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010.

|  Daily Reading Guide  |  2010 Devotion Archives  |
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 16 June 10
            Good morning, dear people.
            Becki joined me on a jog/walk this morning…amidst this winter-like spring.  I can tell by the temperature and feel of the air that it would be a good day to go skiing if the areas were still open.  What are we going to do with all this global warming?
            Be good…by His standards, and you’ll be fine…no matter what.
                                                          Love, Dad/Ray
 
16 June 2010
Passage: Luke 17:1-19
Focus: “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”  Luke 17:10.
            There are those who promote the idea of a soft and gentle Jesus.  I suppose He is that in response to sincerely repentant sinners.  But we will never find Him being very soft and gentle in response to deceit, arrogance, or self-centeredness.  In those cases He appears severe and even rude. He knows that such contaminating qualities are counter-productive to the Kingdom.  And wherever Jesus senses the presence of these ingredients in someone’s question or comment we find Him not responding so much to the actual question or comment presented as to the motive or attitude behind it.  I think that’s happening here.
            Notice the progression of this conversation.  The disciples say to Jesus, “Increase our faith.”  Jesus first answers by describing a sensational demonstration of faith…moving a big tree into the sea without a bulldozer.  Very likely the disciples were getting excited and thinking, “Yes, yes…that’s the kind of faith we want.  We want to have so much faith-power that everything we command in Your Name happens.”  I’m afraid that if God’s miracle power was made available in the way the disciples wanted, there may not be many trees left on land.  They would all be in the sea as a result of self-centered “believers” showing off their spiritual power.  But now Jesus deals with their flawed motives and seeks to help them understand that the kind of faith He promotes is not just a form of Christian magic.  It’s not the result of independent measurements of some supernatural anointing.  It doesn’t happen by using special words and phrases with the volume turned high.  It’s not something we perform to show off in a way that would cause people to feed our ego and say, “Wow! What a mighty man of God!”  Miracle faith is not realized and experienced by seeking miracle faith.  Rather it is a byproduct of a humble serving faith.  Within the work of God, there is a lot of plowing and perspiration and mundane to do.  And it doesn’t matter how much work you seem to get done and how faithful and sensational you seem to do it, you still remain an UNWORTHY SERVANT who is undeserving of the applause of God or man.  Seeking Him and serving Him is your personal duty and responsibility. And it is only this quality of faith that yields the proper display of miracles.  Mustard-seed faith is first and foremost SERVICE and DUTY with a sense of UNWORTHINESS.
 
            “If you are too big to be willing to do little things, you are probably too little to be trusted with big things.”