Love and Light Devotional Series – Day 4

This is Day 4 of a 5-day devotional series. For previous devotionals posted, follow this link.

Feel the Burn

No athlete enjoys the burn of the workout they perform. But there is a good burn to endure if you want to reap the results of your efforts. In the state of fat-burn, essential elements of muscles are constructed, while the unessential remains of excessive, unhealthy fat are destroyed. In our walk with Christ, it takes endurance and intensive training to build spiritual health too. Repetitions of spiritual discipline and practices produce and condition our minds and hearts to live more and more like Christ – in submission to the will of the Father.

When we decide to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus, it is not easy to make that first step of denial. We must sacrifice our self-centered pursuits and priorities to trade them in for the results that gratify God’s desires. While we make those sacrifices and deny our rights, it feels painful like a workout. But the burning off of our sinful self-assuming habits from our old nature simultaneously strengthens our new creation’s spirit.

When abiding with God and doing this in His strength, He comes alongside us to enable and empower us to do what He’s asked us to do. When we join His efforts where He is working, we will be stretched and strengthened, and see amazing growth in ourselves, and change in the situations we are in as well.

Ask any athlete why they discipline their bodies. It’s not because they enjoy the burn, but because of the results that it gives them: strength, agility, speed, and even more control. Similarly, the burn of God’s love through spiritually disciplining ourselves to abide and develop our spiritual muscles produces results that will astound and impress us. Resiliency follows.

Verses to Burn On:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

Love in Action:

Identify what areas of your life are marked by patient endurance, and within those areas, where are you spiritually? Are you starting to endure, have you been enduring, or have you reaped a harvest?