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 |
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4 Sept 10
Good afternoon, dear people.
It is now 1:15pm. It’s mainly overcast…and coolish. A very
nice day to work outside.
I was able to get some electrical power circuits active in the pole
barn already this morning with the help of an electrician friend.
I’ll be able to power up some new woodworking equipment I have.
There’s a lot more to do before I hit the bed tonight. Better
keep chuggin’.
May you be blessed.
Love, Dad/Ray
4 September 2010
Passage: Galatians 5:16-26
Focus: “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Galatians 5:16
Wow! This may be a short reading (only 10 verses), but it’s sure long on meaning and importance!
I own and operate some rather technical equipment—like my WoodMizer
sawmill. There are times when something goes amiss, and it is
very helpful to have an owner’s manual with a troubleshooting guide to
help with diagnosis and repair. May I suggest that you use this
passage in the same way to help you address any malfunctions in your
own technical life? When you notice that your life just isn’t running
quite right, use it as a checklist and troubleshooting guide.
Better yet, use it as a guide for preventive maintenance and optimal
performance.
I know I have presented some similar ideas in the past, but I think
that the importance of this matter warrants repetition. I would
like to recommend a little exercise in regards to this reading.
I’ll base it on the words of Jesus in John 6:63 where He says, “The
Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have
spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” I know there are
lots of angles to this, but I think we can all agree that the Word of
God (the Bible) is, in large measure, the medium of the Spirit of
God. Therefore, I suggest that as you read this section, you
exchange the word “Spirit” for the phrase “Word of God.” This
will not exhaust the meaning of the message, but will give it some
valid and practical amplification. May I also suggest that you
read Romans 8 in the same way?
There are some noteworthy parallels of teaching and theme between
Galatians 5 and Romans 8. I’ve decided to copy here Romans 8:1-14
from the Message Translation just to help expand our understanding of
the wonderful solution to the sin problem that God provides through His
Spirit…through Christ…through His Word.
“With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is
resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer
have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new
power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a
strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a
fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
“God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t
deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his
Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the
disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once
and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured
human nature, could never have done that.
“The law always ended up being used as a band-aid on sin instead of
deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we
couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own
efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
“Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with
measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it
in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that
God’s Spirit is in them…living and breathing God! Obsession with
self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into
the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the
opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores
God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person
ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being
ignored.
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly
be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who
has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of
Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who
welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the
limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms.
It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who
raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same
thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself?
When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in
Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit
living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”
“So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one
red cent? There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The
best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new
life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and
places to go!”
“One may go wrong in many directions, but right in only one.”