Daily Devotionals
Monday, October 14, 2024 (Mary Ann)
‘Carbing up’ for Believers
Teenage boys and their endless appetites are the stuff of legend. We know, because some of us at RCC Bible Study have been lucky enough this year to help feed the Cambridge-Isanti High School football team Thursday nights before their Friday night games.
It’s a regular pasta-thon. A supersketti extravaganza. A noodilicious nosh. Technically speaking, it’s a carbo-rama-dama-do.
Why? Well, the coach knows his team will have to focus and play hard through all four quarters of the game. And all that pasta we serve comes packed with carbohydrates, which produce the energy these guys need to face what’s coming. Like having to run full-tilt into a 240-lb wall of defensive lineman muscle. Or getting chased down and tackled by a pack of savage teenage glory-seekers.
As believers, we all have our challenges. And while our lives aren’t a game, and this is an imperfect analogy, there are similarities with these young CIHS Bluejackets in how we navigate those challenges and live victoriously.
We have a good, good Coach (AKA Heavenly Father) who knows our needs. …for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:8) In fact, he knows much more than we do! Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)
We need powerful spiritual nourishment to face what’s coming. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, let alone the next months and years? To be ready to meet life’s challenges, we need a healthy, balanced spiritual diet (not junk food) that includes:
* Regular heaping helpings of God’s Word. Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. (Psalm 119:105) But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it — not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it — they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:25)
* An honest relationship with the Coach. Give your burdens to the Lord and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. (Psalm 55:22)
* Concentration on the play book. Study this Book of Instruction. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. (Joshua 1:8)
We spiritually carb up in order to stay in the game. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)
We emerge victorious. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except for the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)
Dear Sisters, we’re not up against mere beefy teenage football players this side of eternity. We’re up against the very enemy of our souls, and it’s a race to the end. So let’s “carb up” so we can join Timothy in saying, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8)
And remember — we really are better together!
Mary Ann
Teenage boys and their endless appetites are the stuff of legend. We know, because some of us at RCC Bible Study have been lucky enough this year to help feed the Cambridge-Isanti High School football team Thursday nights before their Friday night games.
It’s a regular pasta-thon. A supersketti extravaganza. A noodilicious nosh. Technically speaking, it’s a carbo-rama-dama-do.
Why? Well, the coach knows his team will have to focus and play hard through all four quarters of the game. And all that pasta we serve comes packed with carbohydrates, which produce the energy these guys need to face what’s coming. Like having to run full-tilt into a 240-lb wall of defensive lineman muscle. Or getting chased down and tackled by a pack of savage teenage glory-seekers.
As believers, we all have our challenges. And while our lives aren’t a game, and this is an imperfect analogy, there are similarities with these young CIHS Bluejackets in how we navigate those challenges and live victoriously.
We have a good, good Coach (AKA Heavenly Father) who knows our needs. …for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:8) In fact, he knows much more than we do! Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)
We need powerful spiritual nourishment to face what’s coming. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, let alone the next months and years? To be ready to meet life’s challenges, we need a healthy, balanced spiritual diet (not junk food) that includes:
* Regular heaping helpings of God’s Word. Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. (Psalm 119:105) But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it — not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it — they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:25)
* An honest relationship with the Coach. Give your burdens to the Lord and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. (Psalm 55:22)
* Concentration on the play book. Study this Book of Instruction. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. (Joshua 1:8)
We spiritually carb up in order to stay in the game. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)
We emerge victorious. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except for the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)
Dear Sisters, we’re not up against mere beefy teenage football players this side of eternity. We’re up against the very enemy of our souls, and it’s a race to the end. So let’s “carb up” so we can join Timothy in saying, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8)
And remember — we really are better together!
Mary Ann
