This week focus on the New Nature God offers to give you.
Caring effectively is beyond our natural human abilities.
Caring is more than a set of skills. It comes from the inside and flows out from the New Nature God produces in us. That helps us care like God cares for us and helps people experience God through our care. Take a week to open yourself to the work of God in and through you.
The First Essential: A Nature to Care
AN INVITATION TO DAILY WORSHIP
Father help me to live up to your presence within me. I confess I have not always loved my neighbor as myself, nor loved you with all my heart, all my soul, and all of my strength. I want to live in the fullness of your Holy Spirit fresh and alive flowing through me. By the fruit of Your Spirit, may I more readily care for others. Give me eyes to see the people in my life the way You do. In their trials and tribulations, help me help them. Lord, give me ears that I may hear their cry no matter how silently they weep. Give me hands to help me reach down to pick others up. Father, give me feet that will race to do good work in your name. O Holy Spirit help me reach my heavenly potential for care in all aspects of life for those you bring to me. In Jesus name I ask these things. Amen.”
DAILY SCRIPTURES
A Psalm for every day.
Psalm 51
Daily Readings
Monday John 15:1-5
Tuesday Ephesians 4:22-33
Wednesday Ezekiel 36:26
Thursday II Corinthians 5:16-21
Friday II Peter 1:3-11
Saturday Colossians 3:9-16
Sunday Romans 6:1-14
PERSONAL REFLECTION
In C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, the "new nature" refers to the transformation of a person's character and will through a relationship with God, which goes beyond simply observing moral rules to internalizing and living out the virtues of Christ. This process involves a supernatural change, a kind of "spiritual re-creation," rather than merely improving one's existing human nature which is characterized by an inherent flaw or "original sin". Lewis explains that through faith and the presence of God's Spirit, a Christian is given a new capacity to act selflessly and love others, thereby demonstrating a nature that reflects God's goodness.
PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
“Show me Your glory, I pray to You, so that I may know You indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow you up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God
SONG OF THE WEEK
Change My Heart Oh God
Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You
Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You
You are the potter
I am the clay
Mold me and make me
This is what I pray
Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qobiU0TbXOg
RECEIVE THE BLESSING
“Grow, dear friends, but grow, I beseech you, in God’s way, which is the only effectual way. See to it that you are planted in grace, and then let the divine Husbandman cultivate you in His own way and by His own means.”
Hannah Whitall Smith in
The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life
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Weekly devotions will be coming for each of the 7 Essentials. Some will be included as art of the regular blog and some will be in addition,
