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

Shepherding God, if left to me, my faith would flounder and I would undoubtedly be lost and wandering. Thank you that my salvation rests on your undeserved mercy and unfailing promises. I am kept and protected because you have laid down your life for me. Amen. (Prayer based on the Canons of Dort, Question 5.8)

*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 83 | Read 2 Corinthians 7

• 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: “Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a classic of pastoral response: affectionate, firm, clear, and unswerving in the conviction that God among them, revealed in Jesus and present in his Holy Spirit, continued to be the central issue in their lives, regardless of how much of a mess they had made of things.” Meditate on the passage, noting a few words or a phrase that stood out. Take them to God in prayer.

Evening Readings:

Pray Psalm 84 | Read Ezra 9

• OT Context: “Ezra led God’s people into an obedient listening to the text of Scripture. Listening and following God’s revelation are the primary ways in which we keep attentively obedient to the living presence of God among us. Ezra made his mark: Worship and Text continue to be foundational for recovering and maintaining identity as the People of God. Reflect on the passage. Who was the original audience, and what was their situation? How is that relevant to you today?

Sermon Devo

We are in our Spring series in Romans 8. Each day we will dig into a different aspect of this incomparable chapter and see how it alters the way we live “in Christ!”

Read: Romans 8:18-25

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

Ray Ortlund says of our passage, 

“This life is not really life. Our present existence is a living death, and we are on our way to real life. Christians are people who find in their hearts such yearnings for true life, such confidence in God’s promises of that life, that they face into their sufferings with a rugged determination to live well and die well now…

[Yet] Romans 8:18-25 is not about heaven, at least the way people often think of heaven – a place far away from here and totally different from this world. Paul is envisioning the renewal of creation, with our very bodies redeemed out of weary decrepitude into resurrection immortality. If you die in Christ, your personality, your spirit, your consciousness, goes immediately to be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6, 8; Phil. 1:23). That confidence makes us strong. But God promises us even more than that. As Paul explains here, God promises us a renewed creation (Isa. 65:17-25; Rev. 21:1-5) as the theater in which we will experience the eternal drama. 

Do you notice that the word heaven nowhere appears in this passage, but the word creation appears four times (vv. 19, 20, 21, 22)? In verse 23 Paul mentions our bodies as the final triumph of our redemption. So here is my point. The glory God promises us, the glory by which we should measure our present sufferings, is not an ethereal, unreal dream but a very recognizable reality. It is this creation right here right now, only renewed in perfection. 

Paul envisions the redemption of our bodies, these bodies right here right now. Look at your fingers. Look at your fingerprints. The FBI tells us that those swirls of lines on your fingers are unique to you. Do you realize that, changed into a glorious body (1 Cor. 15:35-58), it is these God-created fingers that will leave your personal fingerprints all over the new heavens and the new earth? Everything suffering and death take away from us God will give back to us, and in better condition. So what do we have to lose, suffering with Christ?”

REFLECT:

What comes to mind when you think of the final home of redeemed humans? How do these verses affirm or correct your mental image?

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