Childish Ways

Devos this week are written by Ryan Bisel who will be sharing the message this Sunday.

Paul was frustrated with the church at Corinth. He preached the gospel in that city for many months. He lived, worked, ate, and taught among them. Five years later, he heard disturbing news: They were not growing spiritually on their own. Paul wrote them saying, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11).

What childish ways are stunting your growth?

Got Milk?

Devos this week are written by Ryan Bisel who will be sharing the message this Sunday.

Numerous medical studies demonstrate conclusively the benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and baby. Intuitively, however, we know that there comes a time for a baby to transition to solid food.

Paul compared spiritual maturity to the natural transition between consuming milk and eating solid foods. In 1 Corinthians 3:2-3, Paul wrote, “I fed you with milk, not solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?”

Have you made that transition from milk to solid food? If not, what human inclinations are holding you back?

Preparing a Meal

Devos this week are written by Ryan Bisel who will be sharing the message this Sunday.

This past summer my in-laws adopted two boys, ages 10 and 15. I took care of them during the summer months. During the first few days, I prepared nice lunches for them as they sat and watched cartoons (much to my chagrin).

I assumed that they did not have the skills to make food on their own. I was shocked to arrive one morning and see the pair making pancakes for themselves. They were perfectly content to watch me make them food when I was around, but hunger—and the absence of an adult they could trick—motivated them to prepare their own meal.

Are you hungry enough to prepare your own spiritual meals? Or do you tend to wait on someone else? Why?

Read Hebrews 5:11-14.

Learning to Walk

The devos this week are written by Ryan Bisel who will be sharing the message this Sunday.

Addie and I have some dear friends with three children. Their most recent little girl rarely has to set foot on the ground to get where she wants to go. Mom, Dad, Sisters, or Grandparents are more than happy to carry her.

But there almost certainly comes a point in a child’s development when it ceases to be cute that they depend on others for transportation. In fact, it may be harmful.

How much do you rely on others to carry you through the Word? Are you a young believer who genuinely needs the help? Or have you been a believer long enough that you ought to be able to walk around on your own?

Read Luke 17:5-11. In this passage, Jesus described a loyal and mature servant. What are the servant’s characteristics? How are you similar and different?

Building a House

Devos this week are written by Ryan Bisel who will be sharing the message this Sunday.

When building a house it is imperative to create a solid foundation. But that is not to say that walls, roofs, doors, windows, fixtures, electrical, heating, and plumbing are unimportant. In the production of a quality house, you must begin with a firm foundation—but you must not stop there. You need to continue to build, with quality materials, until the house is complete.

The writer of Hebrews explained, “Therefore, let us go on toward perfection (completion), going beyond the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation . . .” (Hebrews 6:1).

Do you have a firm foundation? Are you building up or continually laying the same foundation again and again?

Think

I have never been a good test taker, it is because I do not have the patience required (I am aware that this is a lame excuse but I have passed it to my children already so I have to stick with it). I would sit in a classroom prior to an exam and just ache for it to be over. As the test paperwork was distributed I would begin almost before it landed on my desk and I would inevitably be the first one finished. I would quickly take it to the professor and exit the classroom. I seldom looked back over or even considered checking my answers. Exams were traumatic to me. Even now, over twenty years since I graduated seminary, I still have nightmares about tests. It is always the same, I wake up and realize that I have a final math exam in a class that I failed to attend the entire semester and in addition to this I am supposed to turn in the full semester worth of homework….sadly this is not all that far fetched.

My middle school kids began to experience some of the Anthony exam hysteria this year as our district went to comprehensive final exams. Always before they would just test by semester but this year it was decided to prepare the students for the future by making the final week of school similar to a “Friday the Thirteenth” movie. It worked, they were scared. They have begun their nightmares many years before dad.

While I am not a fan of exams I do admit they force you to take an accounting of what you have learned and gained. They provide you the opportunity to see how far you have come. We are at the end of our year long “Table” series. This Sunday will be the last message in the series and then we will have a couple of weeks of guest speakers and then will wind up the summer looking at Vision before beginning the new series “ReThink”. Today is our final for the year of “The Table. I would like to ask you to take a moment to think back over the past year and see what you have learned, gained, questioned, or enjoyed. We have looked at what we believe, we have looked at those that are different than us, we have looked at how to live and how to enjoy, in addition to many other “table” insights. Where are you now that you were not at a year ago?

Let’s close out the Table series by looking at the passage we have been on the past two weeks, Philippians 4. How can you put this into action and into your life?

Dirty Hands

My kids have always loved the fall time when they can rake up the leaves. They often play in the leaves, or jump on the piles of leaves, or throw the leaves, but they seldom bag up the leaves. I will see them head out with the rake as they tell me they are going to “help” me with the yard. I have found that their “helpfulness” is often something that ends up creating more work for me. I will now tell them that if they are going to rake they also have to bag. They often put the rake back in the garage and find something else to do. They are very selective in the “help” they want to give.

I knew a man that would always find people that he wanted to “help.” One time he became convinced that the residents of an apartment complex across town needed to be in church. He proceeded to go door to door on Saturdays and find families who he could bring to church the next day. He would spent a couple of weeks transporting these families to and from church. However, like clockwork, there would soon come a time when his “helpfulness” would reach its limit and he would feel the need to do something else with his time. At this point he would inform the staff of the church that they would now need to start transporting the families as God was “calling” him to another ministry. This would go on to the point that the staff of his church had to discourage him from doing this pointing out to him that he seldom stuck with his “callings”. He found this offensive and went to a different church.

We all want to be helpful….to a point.

The apostle Paul experienced this with the many churches he helped start. Few wanted to help him when it got tough or difficult…or inconvenient. Paul states that one church stuck with him, the church at Philippi. Read what he said about them in Philippians 4:14-19. He says that they “shared” in his troubles and that their gifts were like a “fragrant offering” to him and pleasing to God. It was not so much what they sent, he said earlier that he had no need, but it was the fact that they cared. They cared and were willing to stick with him even when it became inconvenient or difficult.

What has God set before you that has become inconvenient or difficult? How are you responding?