Hebrews 12:2,3 (NIV)

…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Reflection:

Jesus never lost sight of the journey He was on and where He was headed. He remained on the path set for Him, and fixed His eyes on the cross because the cross was the ‘sweetness’ of His journey – laying His life down for us. No matter what may try to make us lose heart, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the undistracted One, as we journey with Him in this life of faith in God. And because He endured the cross, we can now endure, and live and experience the same sweet journey of laying down our lives for another.

Response:

We are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Undistracted One. We are to consider how He lived and laid down His life for us. This is the ‘sweeter’ way of the cross. We are now chosen and blessed to live this sweeter way - a life laid down for another. Let us thank and give praise to God today that we can and are able to live such a life of love, and let’s also ask for His Spirit to help us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Col. 2:6-10 (NIV)

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

Reflection:

These verses declare the fullness we have in Christ Jesus. There is nothing sweeter, nothing more we really need. Nothing can truly satisfy us more than Him. By God’s grace and through the power of the Spirit, we have received Christ, the very fullness of Him. In light of this, we are to embrace and celebrate this fullness by continuing to live lives that become rooted and built in Him, guarding our hearts from deceptive philosophies, and overflowing with thankfulness. We can depend upon Christ because He is the head over every power and authority!

Response:

The truth is that we have already been given much. All we have to do now is to live it out. Let’s offer up prayers of thanksgiving to God because we have Christ and can now live rooted and built up in Him, lacking nothing.

Gal. 5:1, 7-9, 13-14, 24-25 (NIV)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Reflection:

These verses are written to the church in Galatia, who were encountering opposition and false teaching that tried to draw them away from the life laid out by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But the Apostle Paul declared to them and also to us today that whatever the distractions are that come our way, we have been chosen and set free to live a focused life of following Jesus Christ, and that life is lived by the Spirit. And now having received this precious freedom of living by the Spirit, we are encouraged to keep in step with the Spirit - to love and serve one another. And it only gets better. It is the Spirit who makes the journey real and sweeter.

Response:

Marathons can be grueling and once you lose focus, things can get harder and harder, and the race may not always end up in your favor. Blinders are placed on certain beasts of burden in order to help them remain focused and undisturbed as they travel. While on this journey following the Lord, distractions will come that may cause us to lose focus or make the traveling seem not so great after all. However, we have received the Spirit, and can now remain focused and withstand disturbances. Let’s pray and ask the Lord to help us to live in the freedom of Christ, loving and serving one another, keeping in step with the Spirit that lives in us.

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Reflection:

Many of us desire to offer something back to God, but this passage declares that because God is merciful to us, we are to worship Him with our bodies – the entirety of who we are. As those who belong to Him, we are also to refuse to give in to what the world dictates and instead have our minds renewed as we live lives that are dedicated to the Lord. On this journey with God, this is real transformation – becoming a living sacrifice, knowing God’s will, knowing the ‘why’ about life and being able to know what is sweet and what is not. This is why we are on this journey – for true and proper worship of God.

Response:

As people of God, we may occasionally find ourselves asking why we do what we do and what it is all about. Whether we have been on this Christ-led journey for only a few years or have been at it for most of our lives, we can rest assured that the Spirit of Christ who is alive in us renews and transforms us, and enables us to continue to offer our lives to Him in true worship. Today, let’s give joyous praises to Him, because we have been renewed by the Spirit, and let’s ask the Spirit for more transformation that true and proper worship of God may increase in our lives.

Ephesians 2:3-10 (NIV)

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Reflection:

This passage describes to us the state that we came from before we knew our Savior – we were deserving of wrath. In full detail of exactly who God is, we are given the incredible truth of how we are no longer trapped or defeated, but made alive in Christ. In no way have we earned this salvation, but it was freely given to us by God’s love and mercy. There is no amount of work that could ever come close to how we have been saved. We are no longer the same! We have been created anew in Christ Jesus. This is the reality of life in Christ.There is no substitute for salvation. We have it real and raw.

Response:

It is easier to be nostalgic about things that were good in the past over those that have been bad. Many of us would rather talk about the positive things that have worked in our lives and forget about what didn’t work. But as people of God, we don’t have to live in the past or be defined by it. Our reality is that we can live in the freedom that we have found in Christ because of the salvation work done by God who loved us greatly for all time. Today, let’s pray and thank our Lord for what He has done for us! Let’s praise God for this very real salvation we have through Christ Jesus that has changed our destiny forever.