Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 100:
Lord, empower me to worship and serve You with gladness today,
for I belong to You. I am Yours and You are mine, my Lord!
May my life become an expression of gratitude and praise.
for all Your love and goodness to me.
Amen.
Reading
The immediate context to this section is Jesus’ promise that His disciples will do great works of faith. In v.6 He said, ‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it will obey you.‘
But then He is quick to correct any sense of pride we might develop over the ways we have served God and His Kingdom. Let’s be real – no Christian disciple can ever sit back pridefully as if we, by our own great brilliance, have impacted the world for Jesus. Every resource we have, every ability we possess, and everything we accomplish are all actually gifts from the Lord. It is He who guides, inspires, equips, empowers, and sustains us. It is He who accomplishes His Kingdom purposes through our smallest acts of faith-filled obedience and service.
As disciples we need constantly to remember that our entire lives are a response to the beautiful salvation Jesus has given us as a free gift of grace. He has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing, as Ephesians 1:3 so beautifully says:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
So when we have served Him, and even when we have experienced great, supernatural success over seemingly impossible obstacles – like Jesus’ amusing example of uprooting a mulberry tree by a word of command (v.6) – even then we have not accomplished this by our own brilliance, but By His grace and power.
So our lives as Christian disciples ought always to be characterised by humble works of service and love, in humble, grateful response to the awesome grace and goodness of Jesus.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over and over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will serve Him humbly, continually and diligently as a loving response to His goodness and grace.
Holy Spirit, fill me with an awareness of all that Jesus has done for me, and help me to respond through a life of grateful, humble, diligent service. Amen.
Dave's Diary 