CONTENTS
1. Come to Jesus Daily devotional- Monday – Be lifted by going to the source
- Tuesday – Be lifted by Being washed
- Wednesday – Be lifted through thirst
- Thursday – Ezekiel Pt. 1. Be lifted by seeing the river
- Friday – Ezekiel Pt. 2. Be lifted by going where the river flows
- Saturday - Ezekiel Pt. 1. Be lifted by naming the city ‘the Lord is there’
For links to the message and our blog which contains all of our studies, go to our website,
1. COME TO JESUS DAILY DEVOTIONAL
One of our goals as a church is to spend at least 20 minutes every day in prayer and worship out of the bible. I hope you find this devotional helpful toward that end.
This series, LIFT…
…is different to our usual practice for working through a book of the bible. I felt thought that, for this season, it would be refreshing to seek God for what He wants to say and to simply share that.
I trust that such an approach will help remind all of us to be prophetic - to listen to what God wants to say as a lifestyle.
These daily studies, likewise, are from my, and other church member’s devotions. I will also include devotionals derived from the various contributions that you share, as a church, in various settings.
Matt Beaney June 2019
MONDAY – BE LIFTED BY GOING TO THE SOURCE
I was recently in my kitchen and I was filling a bottle with water and suddenly I realised that my foot was getting wet. The water was running down the bottle, over the surface, and dripping onto the ground and my foot. What should I mop up first the floor or the surface? Of course, go to the source - you stop the source, you stop the flow.
In terms of a river, if the source is polluted or damned, the health of the river is affected. When you deal with the source all that happens down-stream is touched.
Psalms 46:4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
There is a river for us. This river is the Holy Spirit and all the good things that are ours through Jesus. We need to be convinced that there is a river if we are to enjoy it. Jesus wants to speak to you about the stream that He supplies. There are lots of rivers that make sad, make mad, but only one that makes us truly glad.
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit… (John 7:37-39)
RESPONSE
If you stop the source, you stop the flow. If we fail to be filled with the Spirit each day, our joy and fruitfulness will wither.
How are you at the moment? Full of joy and hope? If you are, please encourage others. If not, ‘there is a river…’ He is the only river. In Him, we are washed and refreshed.
And let’s not forget, this is not just about you. This river ‘makes glad the city’. This river flows into you and, through you, brings the hope of Jesus to your brothers and sisters in the church and beyond.
This week: Memorise John 7:37-39 and meditate and pray out of each day and throughout the day.
TUESDAY – BE LIFTED BY BEING WASHED
Acts 22:16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptised and wash your sins away, calling on his name.
My sins have been washed away. What an amazing truth. Without me doing anything, I have been washed clean. Simply by ‘calling on His name’ I have received this gift of salvation. Anyone who calls on His name will be saved (See Romans 10:13). I needed you to wash me. I had no way of removing my indelible stains. Only you could have done this for me (See Isaiah 1;18)
How does such a miracle of cleansing happen? Through calling on His name - the mighty name of Jesus. Calling on His name means:
- We know that we are lost and need help.
- To call on His name - it is to believe that Jesus can help us in our greatest need (salvation) and all other needs.
The account of Naaman, the ‘great army commander’ is very helpful. Despite his greatness, he had leprosy. No matter what our worldly status, we are sinners in need of cleansing. Naaman was very offended when he is told that his cleaning will come by simply washing in the River Jordan. Likewise, let’s not be offended by the declaration of our complete helplessness that the gospel - salvation by faith alone - declares. (Read the account in 2 Kings 5)
This ‘calling on His name’ is a one-time and on-going thing. It’s to be justified through faith - a one-time act; but we are to continually keep our faith on Jesus. We must never go back to unbelief or works-based self-righteousness - self-cleaning.
RESPONSE
May I call on your name yesterday, today and forever. Keep my heart faithful. Through your word I hear your command to call on your name and so I know that my faith response will be met with your divine power to do so.
WEDNESDAY – BE LIFTED THROUGH THIRST
Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
In Matthew 5:3-12, Jesus gives us a portrait of a Christian, known as the Beatitudes (Latin for blessed). Each attribute starts with “Blessed…”. Blessed means to be happy and in good relationship with God. In our culture, that avoids hardship at all costs, it seems nonsense to say that someone is ‘blessed’ when they “hunger and thirst for righteousness”; to put it another way, Jesus is saying that we are blessed when we know our sinfulness and look to God for a solution to our hopelessness. Jesus tells us a parable that illustrates this point beautifully,
“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable…The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)
RESPONSE
Do we hunger and thirst for the gift of righteousness - forgiveness and reconciliation - that are only available through faith in Jesus? Jesus completely satisfies us. We have the gift of righteousness freely - such a person is truly blessed. But, and this is a paradox, we ever remain at the same time those who ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’ - a desire to appreciate Jesus more deeply and to be more holy in our lives.
THURSDAY – EZEKIEL PT. 1. BE LIFTED BY SEEING THE RIVER
Ezekiel 47:1-6 …I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple…the water was trickling from the south side…then led me through water that was ankle-deep…led me through water that was knee-deep…led me through water that was up to the waist…now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”
Beginning in 593B.C, Ezekiel was a prophet (someone who speaks God’s words) to God’s people who were exiled in Babylon. Running Ezekiel 40:1 to 48:35 we have a prophetic vision of the restoration of the Land, Jerusalem and the temple; it’s within this promise that we see the river flowing out of the restored temple. To what does this vision principally point? Although Israel were returned to the Land and the temple was rebuilt, the magnificence of this vision point to something way beyond this!
This vision of restoration, and the river flowing from the temple point, firstly, to the ‘age of the Spirit’. This period, in which we are made alive (regeneration) and empowered by the Spirit.
Secondly, the vision points to the restoration of all things; the new heavens and new earth at the return of Christ.
RESPONSE
We are to see the future hope that we have and we are to enjoy that future age, to some measure, right now. We are to ‘see the river’ - understand and enjoy God’s presence in our lives right now.
A good response would be to meditate and pray out of 40:4,
‘And the man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart upon all that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you.’
FRIDAY – EZEKIEL PART 2. BE LIFTED BY GOING WHERE THE RIVER FLOWS.
Ezekiel 47:6-12 Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, ‘This water flows towards the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows…
The river is great – Having been shown the river flowing out of the temple with its every increasing depth and awe-inspiring grandeur, Ezekiel is taken on a closer inspection. It’s as if God is saying, “it’s not enough to know my Spirit’s omnipotent power and joy, you must also be a student in what my Spirit accomplishes”.
The river does good – The results of the outflow of the river -the Holy Spirit- are that the dead places burst into life. A church that is full of people who are coming to Jesus daily to worship and be filled with the Spirit will be a community that overflows and brings life to those around them.
The Holy Spirit is flowing in order to bring people to salvation in Jesus. This is His first passion. Having become Christians, the river of the Spirit continues to flow in and through us to do good works for the flourishing of the communities around us. These take the form of ‘confrontation blessing’ (doing good by being salt and light as we challenge sin) and ‘service blessing’ (doing acts of kindness which help people’s real needs).
RESPONSE
The river of the Spirit is flowing and He, the Spirit, is taking us to the ‘dead sea’ - places that need to hear about Jesus. Let’s allow the Spirit to take us there. Let’s be prepared to be ‘salt and light’ as well as servants to our communities.
SATURDAY – EZEKIEL PART 3. BE LIFTED BY NAMING THE CITY ‘THE LORD IS THERE'
Ezekiel 48:35 The distance all around will be 18,000 cubits. ‘And the name of the city from that time on will be, “The LORD is there.
Ezekiel’s vision of restoration culminates with these words of tremendous promise: ‘The name of the city from that time on will be, “The LORD is there.”
What is the ‘city’? Principally this is referring to the church. Jesus has promised to dwell in His church by the Spirit. For example,
‘You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’ (1 Peter 2:5)
‘Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?’ (1 Corinthians 3:16)
The amazing promise for His church is that ‘The Lord is there’ - He is with us. He is with each of us in our lives, and He is with us as we seek to worship and serve Him together.
The river of God flowing from the temple is symbolic of His presence flowing into His peopleπ. As we saw in Monday’s study,
'There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.’ (Psalms 46:4)
RESPONSE
Do we name the church ‘The Lord is there’?
Do we live our lives in faith and dependence that the Lord is in and with us?
How would this transform our expectation of meeting in our Community Groups and on a Sunday if we truly named this city – the church – ‘The Lord is there’?
2. COMMUNITY GROUP/FAMILY STUDY
BE LIFTED BY GOING TO THE SOURCE
Opener - Do you have any funny or scary stories involving water?
In terms of a river, if the source is polluted or damned, the health of the river is affected. When you deal with the source all that happens down-stream is touched.
Discuss together
- Read Psalm 46:4
- What is the river of Psalm 46?
- What does the river do?
- How does the river make us glad?
- The main idea of Sunday’s message was if you stop the source, you stop the flow. How can we hinder or promote the river (the Spirit’s work) in our lives?
- Read John 7:37-39. How will you do this, this week? (Have people been memorizing, meditating and praying out of it as was encouraged on Sunday?)
- Prayer and fasting – share your experience of last week’s week of prayer and fasting. Is there anything you’ve learnt or been inspired about that you’d like to share?
- Pray and plan: We don’t have an official ‘Hospitality Week’ until September. However, How could you use your summer to really invest in your friends in and outside the church?
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