Devotion

At Trinity, we are seeking to grow in love for Jesus. This starts with the gospel, and with understanding who we are in Christ. We know we love Jesus when we love the things Jesus loves. We know what Jesus loves because we find it in the Bible.

The Heart of the Gospel

The central message of the gospel is that because the Son of God willingly became man and gave his life for us on the Cross, those who believe in him are no longer enemies of God, but are God's children:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins … See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 4:10, 1 John 3:1)

What is often lost in our thinking, is what we are saved for. What the gospel tells us is that, thanks to Jesus, not only have we been saved from sin, but that God sees us as family. Notice how John pointed to the love of the Father. To be a Christian is to have a fundamentally new relationship with God. To be a Christian is to have God as our Father:

Yet to all who … believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God–children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:12-13)

More than that, we are loved by the Father in the same way Jesus is loved by the Father:

“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. … Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:13-23)

This means that ultimately, as God’s children we are also heirs of an eternal hope: that of being with Jesus and sharing in his glory:

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:17)

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Enjoying the Father

However, while we might be God’s children, in the mundane reality of daily life we often don’t feel like God’s children. How do we enjoy the intimacy implied by this familial description?

For many, the answer lies in seeking some kind of “experience of the Holy Spirit.” But the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Adoption:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. (Romans 8:14-16)

Instead, the Holy Spirit’s role is to direct us to Jesus, and to his words:

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 15:26, ESV)
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. (2 Peter 3:18)

Primarily the role of the Holy Spirit was to inspire the authors of Scripture, which is why it is primarily reading the Bible that has the power to change us. Meditation on scripture leads:

To prayer, and faith. “I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. … Answer me quickly, Lord … Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” (Psalms 143:5-8)
To the heart. “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved” (Romans 10:8-9)
To obedience. “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.” (Joshua 1:8) “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22)

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Meditating on Scripture

So how do we do this?

Because this is the work of the Spirit, it is always good to pray for the Spirit to enlighten us in our reading.

We can then start by reading as we would when we try to understand any text. We ask what the is main point the author is making, noting how the passage fits into the book as a whole, and how it follows on from the passage before.

Because this is the Bible, we ask: What does the passage say about Jesus (or God)? What does this say about what Jesus loves? What does the passage say about man’s relationship with Jesus? How does the passage show about Jesus for which I can show gratitude? How does the passage highlight a sin for which I can ask forgiveness? How does the passage show a deficiency in godliness for which I can petition the Father?

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