Use this devo as you are able, in whole or in part. Don’t feel compelled to read it all. Simply read and meditate upon whatever catches your attention. The goal is enjoying time with God through His Word and in prayer. Questions about the devotional elements?

Call to Prayer

Prayer of Confession

Surprising God, your electing love upends the ways I expect things to unfold. I admit I have little clue about the mystery of your choices, and explanations outrun my understanding. Humble me to rest in your good pleasure, the grace from beyond time that guards and guides my life and this world. Amen. (A prayer based on The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q20)

*Prayer borrowed from Philip Reinders’ Seeking God’s Face: Praying with the Bible through the Year

Reading Plan

This reading plan will help you to develop the habit of being in God’s Word each morning and evening. Come to this time with expectation. Expect God to reveal himself to you. Expect that he delights in you being there, even when you’ve wandered away. Growing a spiritual habit is a slow, patient process. So be kind to yourself as you grow! 

Readings are hyperlinked. Simply hover over the passage or click Morning/Evening Reading (email version).

Morning Readings:

Pray Psalm 84 | Read Matthew 6

• Praying the Psalms: Read slowly. Take note of words and phrases. Bring them before the Lord in prayer and personalize the passage as you pray.
• NT Context: Matthew provides the comprehensive context by which we see all God’s creation and salvation completed in Jesus, and all the parts of our lives—work, family, friends, memories, dreams—also completed in Jesus. Lacking such a context, we are in danger of seeing Jesus as a mere diversion from the concerns announced in the newspapers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Meditate on the passage, noting a few words or a phrase that stood out. Take them to God in prayer.

Evening Readings:

Pray Psalm 85 | Read 1 Samuel 29

• OT Context: “Four lives dominate the two-volume narrative, First and Second Samuel: Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David. Chronologically, the stories are clustered around the year 1000 b.c., the millennial midpoint between the call of Abraham, the father of Israel, nearly a thousand years earlier (about 1800 b.c.) and the birth of Jesus, the Christ, a thousand years later.” Reflect on the passage. Who was the original audience, and what was their situation? How is that relevant to you today?

Sermon Devo

This summer we are exploring what it means to keep “in step” with the Spirit. Each week we will consider a specific fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) by looking at other stories and themes throughout Scripture that express this fruit.

Read:  1 Corinthians 13:4

Love is patient and kind. 1 Corinthians 13:4a

The word for love in this passage is not the word meaning affection. It has more to do with decisions, a reasoned choice, and carries the idea of showing or proving one’s love.

Christian love is love that thinks; love that sees into the heart of things and persists. This love is not naïve, nor is it unwilling or unable to see evil. It is compassionate, steady, and persistent. Instinctively, when we think about love, we think about who will love me that way. But the thought here is about the love you are called to show to other people! Patience and kindness have to do with how you relate to other people.

The word for patience literally means that the mind is far from getting angry quickly. “Love is patient” means that you put away passionate anger, and because that anger is put away, you can be kind.

The word kind here can be translated as good. It has the idea of goodness that is constantly expressing itself in relationships. These two words together carry the idea of comforting others. Comfort means to strengthen others. You don’t show love to—comfort—others in their weakness only to leave them in weakness; you show love with the intent of making them strong.

Reflect: How does God’s kindness toward you in Christ get translated into this kind of “comforting” of others?

Evening Prayer of Examen

• Where did you move with or feel close to Jesus today?
• Where did you resist or feel far from Jesus today?
• Where is Jesus leading you tomorrow? Ask for joy as you follow him.

Benediction