Day 4...in some time zone

Day 4

Day 4 Lesson:

Know what it is in life, in God, that you truly desire. Pray for God’s desires to be your own. Reading about the rich young man who walks away from Jesus has much wealth but leaves Jesus unhappy and empty. Physically and spiritually, you can have so much. You can be in tremendous health, have rock hard abs, have the ladies swooning over you (no, I don’t know that girls actually swoon as opposed to talk about you with great giddiness), but you may never be satisfied. You may have read the Bible straight through a dozen times and know each verse (which would indeed be miraculous if you could know the Bible in only 12 reads), but you may not truly know Christ! Know that God created you as an original masterpiece regardless of your opinion of yourself or anyone else’s. You are His and He is yours. Rest assured in that truth. Christ died for you, exactly as you are, flawed and foolish. So wise up and accept God’s love. Accept that He’ll always love you know matter what you’ve done or will do. Just follow Him.

Day 4 Spiritual Development: Scriptures read: Mark 10:17-22, Philippians 2:1-13

Day 4 Physical Development: Understand this from Schnase’s book. “Becoming the person that God desires us to become is also the fruit of a persistent and deeply personal quest, an active desire to love God, to allow God’s love to lead us” (16). Know your goals, pray for God’s goals for you. Trust me, they’re the best plans anyone could ever write out for your life. As a United Methodist myself, I understand this statement as well. “Early Wesleyans were chided as ‘Methodists’ because of their nearly eccentric adherence to methodical ways of systemizing the practices of the Christian faith to promote learning, service, and growth in Christ through daily and weekly exercises and patterns.” The way we stay healthy and improve our physique by maintaining consistency in our exercises and eating habits applies to our spiritual life. To build muscles, we must continually push our muscles harder, working them, and changing up the exercises to keep our muscles adapting. See where I might be going with this? Yes? No? Whatever, here’s what I mean. We must also stay committed to pushing our spiritual boundaries further, trying new things in God, doing things He calls us to that we never thought we would be asked to do. Answering and committing to this calling is what maintains and grows us physically and spiritually.

Alongside you taking the risks to find rewards in Christ,

Brent