“May Christ through your faith (actually) dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely in love” (Eph 3:17; AMPC). (See also Col 2:7; AMPC).

Read this verse again slowly! To think we can have Almighty God living in our hearts permanently – so we can communicate with Him and be led by Him day after day. The first sentence of the verse describes something that God will do (if we invite Him to) and the second sentence pertains to something that we must do, which is to allow our roots to go down deep into His love. If you compare this to natural roots you know that initially a young plant has only very tiny roots but gradually as nutrients and water are received from the soil, they grow and spread all over the place. That’s what we want to do with our spiritual roots – get so much watering and nourishment from the word that we get absolutely rooted and grounded in it. Do you remember the parable of the Sower? The seed on the rocky soil didn’t last long. Why? Because it couldn’t develop deep roots. To be deeply rooted in God and His love we need to meditate on it until we know of God’s love beyond a shadow of a doubt and experience it daily (See 1 John 4:7-21). God’s love isn’t fickle like human love can be; it is constant regardless of what we may or may not do. “God’s love never fails” (1 Cor 13:8).

“May your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 5:23b). We are spirit beings; we live in a physical body and we have a soul (mind, will and emotions). When God created man, He formed our bodies from the “dust of the ground” and “breathed into us” the “breath of life”, our spirit being. (Gen 2:7; NKJV). God is Spirit (John 4:24) and we were created in His image (Gen 1:27). Before we believed in Jesus (Acts 16:31) and became Christians, we were spiritually dead because of sin in our lives (Eph 2:1) and Jesus told a Pharisee named Nicodemus that he had to be born again spiritually (John 3:3,5-7). Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sins so we could be forgiven (Col 1:4) and be restored spiritually into fellowship with God (Titus 3:5), spirit to Spirit. As Christians, God’s Holy Spirit dwells in us (2 Cor 1:22) and interacts with our spirit, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:16; NKJV). The Holy Spirit will develop His fruit in our lives if we allow Him. This fruit is “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23; NKJV). This power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8) through our spirit, helps to mature us to be more and more like Jesus (2 Cor 3:18). He reveals God’s words to us (John 14:16), enables us to have all God has for us and to be all God wants us to be (John 10:10). At the end of our lives here on earth we, our spirit beings, will be with God in heaven forever! (Eccl 12:7). Amen!

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds form the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4; NKJV; Deut 8:3b; Luke 4:4). God’s word for us is our Bible. The scriptures were written by men but under the inspiration of God (2 Tim 3:16). The apostle Paul wrote that God’s word provides us with the foundation for our Christian faith. It instructs us about salvation, how we can growth in our walk with God, and provides the discipline and direction we need to mature and do all God wants us to do (2 Tim 3:15-17). God’s word is truth (John 17:17) and life (John 6:63) and God’s truth will set us free from the effects of sin in our lives (John 8:32). “And now I entrust you to God and the message of His grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those that He has set apart for himself” (Acts 20:32; NLT). Paul clearly emphasizes the importance of God’s word to change us into true Christians or Christ-like men and women. The apostle Peter teaches us to “desire the pure milk of the word” (1 Peter 2:2; NKJV) so we can grow and Paul exhorts us to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16; NKJV). However, it doesn’t end there, the writer of Hebrews further encourages us to dig deep and move on from the basic principles or milk of the word to solid food or a mature understanding (Heb 5:12-14). Let’s renew our minds, wash them with God’s word (Eph 5:26) and bring our thoughts in line with Christ’s (2 Cor 10:5b). The results are amazing but it does take work and discipline.

1 Corinthians 12:7-11 lists the gifts of the Spirit. These are given by the will of the Holy Spirit for specific occasions, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually as He wills” (1 Cor 12:11; NKJV). The reason the spiritual gifts are given is for “the common good” (1 Cor 12:7; CSB); not for personal blessings but to bless the body of Christ. There are nine gifts of the Spirit but for the purpose of this devotion I want to focus on 3 of them; the gift of faith, the gift of healings and the gift of miracles; they all work very closely together. How we need to see these gifts in operation in the church right now, if we did it would surely bring in an influx of the lost. The gift of faith (1 Cor 12:9) is over and above normal faith, it is more than “the measure of faith” that we have all been given (Rom 12:3). Hebrews chapter 11 lists many people from the Bible who operated in the spiritual gift of faith. Closely tied with the gift of faith is the spiritual gift of healings (1 Cor 12:9b). One example (and there are many) of this in operation in the Bible is when Peter and John healed the lame man at the Temple Gate (Acts 3:1-10). Thirdly the gift of miracles refers to wonder-working power to do something totally supernatural and the Bible is full of examples, such as feeding the 5,000. Jesus, of course, was constantly operating in all the spiritual gifts. If we are to see these gifts operating in our churches, we need to do what 1 Cor 14:1 says to do, “Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” (ESV). That’s my heart cry, how about you?