Week Six
I have found a particular delight in the book of Colossians this week. The divine mystery that power is available to us through the Holy Spirit to grow in the true knowledge of God has captured my heart.
I find I am mindful that “knowing” and “believing” are not the same thing. I can know with my mind a truth I don’t believe in my heart, and I can believe a truth in my heart that I do not know intellectually with my mind. The evidence is this: I believe God, whose thoughts are not mine, whose ways are inscrutable and whose heart is unfathomable. My choices reflect truth I believe, not truth I have intellectually attained to. If my choices and priorities are contrary to the true knowledge of God, then somewhere in my heart I am believing a lie, in spite of the truth I “know.”
As we grow up into the true knowledge of Him, which knowledge we receive by revelation of the Holy Spirit, our heart, mind and will become unified in integrity, and we are sanctified by His good work within us. The love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the word of God renewing our minds through revelation of the Holy Spirit, and our will being submitted to the One who works in us to will and to do His good pleasure, we are wholly His and benefit entirely from belonging to Him.
Dear Father, blessed Savior, and Comforting Guide, be my vision and rule my heart. Grant that I may know you more and more, reflect your glory and radiate your love. I submit to your strategy for my life and receive your mercy because I believe your kind intention. Thank you for being with me in the perilous journey and for convincing me of your victory. I offer praise and thanksgiving and humbly worship almighty God, in the name that is above every name, Jesus. Amen.
We have been in some of the letters to the early church which lay out for us what it means to be in the fellowship of believers being led by the Spirit of God into the works of God and witnessing His advancing kingdom. We will move on in our scripture reading this week to some chapters in the gospel according to John. These chapters are Jesus’ words to His disciples and His prayer for them and for us in the days leading up to His arrest, in which He speaks of the nature of things we will face, the sending of the Holy Spirit, abiding in Him, and unity with Him.
Week Six Daily Reading: John chapters 14-17
Journaling prompts: 1. Is your heart troubled? In what areas of your life or in what relationships do you need to believe He has overcome? 2. What do you think Jesus means when He says, “my words abide in you”? Compare John 15:1-8 with Isaiah 55:11 and consider that bearing fruit is the result of His word rather than the result of our work. 3. Consider this “greater love” He talks about. We will typically not be called upon to shed blood for our friends; so, in what way or ways might we “lay down our lives” for our friends? 4. According to John 16:13, how do we know truth? Does it appear this is possible without the Holy Spirit? 5. In John 17, notice the number of times a form of the word “give” is used. Meditate on this generosity in the nature of God. Consider that in a wedding ceremony, a woman is “given” to be married.
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” (John 17:17-19 NKJV)
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