LIVE THE STORY DEVOTIONAL

This devotional is part of a discipleship journey called Live The Story (LTS). Along with gathering weekly in small groups and engaging in daily practices LTS exists to help people learn to live the story of Jesus in every part of their lives.

These personal devotions are intended to help you work through some of the key ideas from each session of LTS as you consider their implication for your life. 

Each reflection takes one scripture passage and looks at it from 5 different angles (one angle a day for five days allowing for one rest day before the next weekly gathering).

The pace of the devotions is intentionally slow because the transformed life is often a matter of depth before breadth, and depth takes time. 

The goal is not that you would just go through a list of Bible passages but that, as you sit with one key idea a day, the passages would go through you. 

By meditating on their truths, sitting with their effects, and placing yourself within them, the hope is that you would discover more of Jesus and, in time, begin to look like him. 

Each devotion has 5 elements and should take you 15-20 minutes to complete.   

The prayer

The first reading

The response

The second reading

The reflection

I pray that as you commit this time to God He would meet with you in significant ways. 

Praying for you as you journey,

Matt

WHY JESUS: I AM

THE PRAYER

Find a quiet space to be alone with God where you won't be distracted. This may be early in the morning, somewhere in the day when you can slip away from the busyness of your work, or later in the evening when you’ve finished all of your necessary tasks.

Whenever you take time for devotions, what matters is that you try to make it a time when you can focus on God. It would be good to turn off your phone, close a door, and sit in a way that will help you stay awake (it's unlikely that lying down will do this). 

Once you've found a space, make yourself comfortable and take a moment to slow down.                      

• Closing your eyes may help you minimise distractions.                      
• Breathe deeply and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken you to his presence.                      
• When you are ready, speak with God about your devotion time. Ask him to help you focus on what you are reading and to hear what he is saying. Ask him to stir your heart with his truth and to bring real and lasting change through the power of his spirit.                      
• Give yourself a moment in this space and then end your prayer time by slowly reciting the following passage two or three times out loud.

Lord, I’m single-minded in pursuit of you; don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted. I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt. Amen. Psalm 119:10-11 (MSG)

THE FIRST READING

In each devotion, there is a first and second reading of the same passage. In the first reading, I encourage you to read slowly (preferably out loud) and take notice of what stands out as you do. How might God be “turning up the volume” on a thought, word, verse, image, or emotion in the passage? 

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NLT)

RESPONSE

Take some time to respond (write down, draw, pray, etc.) to God’s prompting in the first reading of the passage. What is he highlighting and saying to you through this?

THE SECOND READING

Read the passage again (slowly and preferably out loud) through the “lens” of what The Spirit highlighted in the first reading. Listen for anything else the Spirit might be saying.

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NLT)

THE REFLECTION: “I AM”

Each devotion ends with a short reflection from me. My hope is that these thoughts would confirm what God has been speaking to you in your own response time and serve to clarify some of the key ideas that help us live the story of Jesus. 

It’s not the first time we read these words in the Bible. Many years before this moment, before Thomas or Philip asked the question, and before Jesus moved into the neighbourhood, there was Moses. A man running from a past he was trying to forget. A prince shepherding sheep, a leader lost in the desert, a destiny buried under regret. And yet, even there on the far side of the wilderness, in a moment when he least expected it, God found him. Calling out to Moses from a burning bush, God invites him to step onto the Holy Ground of encounter. 

There he would rediscover who he was always meant to be, a liberator of the oppressed, the leader of a nation, the conqueror of an empire. Overwhelmed by the immensity of so great a task, his first question leaves him floundering in doubt.

We’re all aware of what we aren’t. All of us have found ourselves on the far side of the wilderness in some way, shape, or form. And yet, just like he found Moses, God finds us. When he finds us he calls us- not to a life lost in the desert but to a redemptive existence of purpose.

The Bible makes some pretty big claims about what Jesus has done and what that means for your life. You may be overwhelmed by the seeming immensity of it all. Perhaps, like Moses, like all of us, your reflex is to count yourself out in light of who you are not. Can I encourage you not to?

Don’t run from the life you know you long for but are afraid to take hold of. The calling of God has very little to do with who you are or aren’t. Just as Jesus sat before his disciples and asked them, "Who do you say that I am," He sits before you now with the same question. How you answer that question is what stands between you and your humanity. I know, we live in a world obsessed with its own power while drowning in the consequences of its own weakness. However, contrary to what many may think, this is actually the question that matters most.

Who do you say that He is? 

When we take the time to ask this question and then stop long enough to listen - when we take off our sandals and step onto the Holy Ground of encounter with God - we will hear his answer whispering to us in the deep places of our soul.

“I AM."

I know you are not. Me too. But let me assure you; He is, and that changes everything.