Spirit-Powered Passion
Theme of the Week: Contagiously Radical
Thursday, July 17, 2008
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Key Bible Verse: The members of the council were amazed … for they could see they were ordinary men who had had no special training. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). Bonus Reading: Hebrews 11:32-34
The extreme life called "Christian" not only flows from following Jesus, it is empowered by the Holy Spirit who comes and lives in us. So if you're following Jesus and the third person of the Trinity lives in you, how can your life not be radical?
Paul said that the life anointed by the Holy Spirit would be marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Many of those characteristics can be seen in the pagan. So how are love and joy different in the Christian? This love and joy is supernaturally taken to another level, impossible without the Holy Spirit. The same power that created the universe is empowering our hearts to love. The world has a right to ask us: "If the demands of Jesus are so extraordinary, and if you have God inside of you, how come you live such ordinary lives?"
Take these dangerous steps: Observe how association with Christ impacted the lives of the first disciples as you re-read the Gospels and first chapters of Acts. Pray insistently to the Father to fill you with his Spirit. You may contract a "disease" from which you'll never recover!
—John Sartelle in TableTalk
My Response: Since the power that created the universe lives in me, God can use me to …
Thought to Apply: Jesus did not come to make us safe, but rather to make us disciples, citizens of God's new age, a kingdom of surprise. —Stanley Hauerwas (theologian)
Adapted from TableTalk (9/06) by permission.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Deliver me, Lord, from remaining a casual Christian. I'm ready to become the radical disciple Jesus called for.
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