DEVO: Jeremy’s Talk on Sampson

By: Stephanie Glasco

This past week Jeremy gave us a great talk about Sampson how he thought that he deserved things just because he was who he was. We often feel like that, don’t we? We feel like we deserve things just because we exist, and when someone says no, or gets in our way we do or say horrible things to get revenge. While the world may say this is how we should act Jesus says something else with His actions. Let’s take a look at some examples…
Read:
Matthew 5:38-39
Leviticus 19:18
Proverbs 25:26
What do you think these verses say about how we should react when someone gets in our way of what we want? Take some time and write out what you think the Bible says about that.
Next, take some time to write out some ways that you can react differently. Think about the example that Jeremy gave in his talk about a sibling who goes through all of your stuff in your room, how should you handle that situation in The Bible? Take this week and really think BEFORE you react. Challenge yourself to react differently than what the world tells you, and act more like Jesus.

Weekly Devo #4

Grab your Bible’s and a notebook and turn to Matthew 5.  Go ahead and re-read Matthew 5:1-12.

We are continuing in the beatitudes today.  Remember that the word beatitude focus on the word blessing.  Today we are focusing on verse 5 where it says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Journal these thoughts:

• (Remember, each beatitude has a blessing and a reward.  Last devo the blessing was found in mourning while the reward was comfort)
• BLESSING:  What does the word meek mean?  Google it if you have too.  Come up with the best working definition of what you think it means to be meek?
• REWARD:  Now that you think you have a definition that you can work with, why do you think that the Bible says that if you strive for “meekness” you will inherit the earth?
• Turn to Psalm 37:11 (remember that there is a table of contents in the front of your Bible if you need it), what does this say?

The one word that best represents “meek” is the word “gentle.”

As I have stated in previous devo’s, the first three beatitudes focus on our sinful nature.  “Poor in spirit” battles our desire to be our own god (that we are in control of our own lives). “Mourning” battles the denial of the weight of our sin.  “Meekness” battles the desire to make a name for ourselves (to make our name great).

Our goal as believers in Jesus is to make His name great in our life.  The natural pull in our own life is to make our name great.  These two ideas are at war with each other.

Journal Question:

• What things do you do to make you better than others? (example: make jokes about people different than me just to get a laugh with my friends)

When Jesus has all of your heart you will understand what he says in Matthew 11:29, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

1. When life feels heavy, if we rest if Jesus He will take our weight away…because He is gentle.
2. If we learn from Jesus and make His name great in our lives then we will do the same for those around us.  Our focus will not be on making ourselves look good in front of our friends but we will seek to take the burden away from those who are burdened.

REWARD:  We will inherit the earth because when our trust is in God (and seek to make His name great over our own name), no weight can keep us down.  We can overcome anything through Jesus.

 

 

Weekly Devo 3

Grab your Bible and your notebook and let’s begin devo 3.  Find Matthew 5 (remember, there is a table of contents in the front of your Bible if you need help finding the page number to where the book of Matthew is).  I want you to re-read Matthew 5:1-12.  In devo 2 we talked about what the “beatitudes” are.  We find ourselves today looking at the second beatitude or blessing in Matthew 5.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”    v. 4

Today we are focusing on how “mourning” can bring us the greatest amounts of joy in our everyday life.  It sounds kind of weird, doesn’t it?  Mourning (a sad or heavy heart) can bring your great joy?  That’s what Jesus says!

STOP AND JOURNAL:

• Answer this question: How can mourning bring you great joy?
• **hint**  The first three “beatitudes” center around the sin in our hearts.  (example: like we talked about in devo 2, “blessed are the poor in spirit” focuses on our weakness (sin in our hearts) and our great need for God).
• Answer this question: When we come to the place where you know you have sin in your heart, what is the greatest way you can fight that sin?

These two questions are not easy questions to answer.  If you couldn’t answer then, don’t worry about it.  If you answered them but are worried you didn’t answer them “right”, seriously, don’t worry about it.  The biggest reason I ask these questions is to help you wrestle with things that you normally would not wrestle with.  We grow closer to Jesus when we wrestle with the things that matter to Him.

The greatest way we can fight against our sin is to #1 know that you sin and #2 hate your sin.  Many of us have heard a lot about sin and we know that we sin.  There is a big difference in knowing that you sin and then hating your sin.  God hates our sin because it steals away from us everything great that God wants to give us.

When Jesus says, you will find the greatest amounts of joy through mourning (being sad/heavy heart), He is saying that when you hate you sin so much that it makes you sad…HIS promise to you is that “you will be comforted.”

Re-look at every beatitude (blessing) and notice that every one of them (v. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) has a promise.  Today, Jesus promises that when we hate our sin so much that it makes us sad, He promises to lift up our hearts and fill us with joy.  How?  Because, like last week,  Jesus forgives our sin.

THE HOPE:  When we hate our sin so much, and Jesus forgives us, our hearts will fight to not sin like that again.  We will mess up.  But then Jesus is there again to forgive us.  This is called “GRACE” — getting something we do not deserve.

**Tomorrow we will look at the third beatitude

Remember, if you have a question about today’s devo, ask a question on our formspring page.

Weekly Devo 2

Here we go.  Grab your Bible and notebook (if you want) and read Matthew 5:1-12.  For nine days we are going to be looking at these verses, and everyday I want you to re-read through each of these 12 verses.  If your Bible has heading, you will notice that this section is titled “The Beatitudes.”

• Since we just read through all the beatitudes, in your journal I want you to write down what you think the word “beatitudes” means.  Use context clues.  Come up with the best definition you can on your own. (do this before you continue reading)

The beatitudes center on one word that each beatitude shares…blessings.

Each one of these beatitudes focuses on helping to teach us how to live where we can experience the greatest amounts of joy.  I don’t know about you, but things tend to make sense when there is joy involved.  This is why I see it’s pretty important to spend some time on each one.

v. 3.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Journal some thoughts on these two questions:

• what do you think “poor in spirit” mean?
• what is good about being poor in spirit…how can that bring us joy?

What do poor people need the most.  HOPE!  Being “poor in spirit” is directly related to our relationship with God.  When we are “poor in spirit” we recognize that we are in need of God.  As we start off every week at Emerge “we are just a group of jacked up people coming to stand before a holy God,” we are jacked up because of our sin.  We can not deal with sin on our own to make us better.  Only God can deal with our sin. These verses show God’s love for us even in our sin!

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  – Romans 5:8

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  – 1 John 1:9

When we are poor in spirit we know that we need God!  We need the blood of Jesus to forgive our sins.  We need God to show us how to choose right.  We need God to be our strength because we are not strong enough on our own.  When we recognize that we are poor in spirit, it starts to move us out of the center of our lives and places Jesus at the center.

**Monday:  We will look at v. 4

Weekly Devo 1

Here we go.  Grab your Bibles and find Matthew (there is a table of content in the front of your Bible if you need one).  Just so you know, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are called the gospels.  These are 4 books of the Bible that record the life of Jesus that He walked here on earth.  Each book is the same writings from different perspectives.  Think about a football game.  As a players, people watching in the stands, and coaches…they all have different takes on the game and how it went.  The facts is the game doen’t change.  The greatest things that changes is; the players like to talk the emotion of the game, the people in the stands tell of the game from a “birds eye view,” while the coaches talk more about how the “game plan” went.  Three different people, same game, different perspectives.  The gospels are a lot like that but about Jesus’ life.

Matthew chapter 5 is the beginning of one of the greatest teachings from Jesus (in my opinion).  I want to walk with you in reading these three chapters and seeing a deeper picture of Jesus and His heart for us.  This is what I want you to do today.  Look over these three chapters and look at every heading in your Bible and get a feel for the things that we are going to talk about.  As we prepare to dive in and start reading tomorrow, here’s what you need to know:

• Jesus is teaching His disciples here (those who really want to love Jesus)
• There are two ways to living Jesus talks about: 1) doing what is right because that’s what you’ve been told 2) doing what is right because that is the reaction of your heart.
• Some thought the way you should live was one way (out of duty)…but Jesus took it to a different level (from the heart).
• Reading through this will teach us to live life a little differently than everyone else and start to bring huge amount of freedom in your life.

**Tomorrow we are going to begin looking at Matthew 5:1-3.