Daily Devotional For Tuesday, January 28, 2025

It’s Terrific Tuesday and I pray your day is off and running with a great start today. This is the day the Lord has made and we can rejoice and be glad in it. Since the New Year began, we have entered for some, the most depressing days of the year – winter. Professionals call it “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (SAD). For many, all the New Year’s Resolutions they made have become unfulfilled. It takes commitment, discipline and calendaring it to do anything, especially anything new. Hope is not enough. For years I was a runner and a cyclist. Everyday except Sundays I would run and/or cycle. I was in great health, slept well,and had energy to do what I wanted to do. 

Yet, there were days I did not want to run or cycle. Even when I was a member of a gym, I felt great. But I can’t tell you in the middle of a workout how many times I thought, “Oh, I’m having fun now.” In my case, there were at times messages coming from all over my body saying, “We’ve had enough of this foolishness. Park it! Stop.!” People who coach runners for example tell them that when they get a thought to stop running, to think this instead: “Decide you’re going to run to the next mailbox. When you get there, run to the next mailbox. Just don’t give up.”

No discipline is fun and it is not supposed to be. That is the point of these verses:

• Hebrews 12:11, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (NASB). 
• Proverbs 14:23, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (NIV).
• Proverbs 13:4, “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper” (NLT).

When you are learning to persevere in prayer, or study God’s Word, not all of the messages you hear in your mind will be affirming. Everyone may not want to join you in whatever you’re attempting to be disciplined.. Your prayers may not be answered in the way you expect, or in your timing. Jesus coached His followers to pray and not give up. So, let’s pray, “day and night” … and not give up! 

I hear people tell me there are all these projects they want to get done, but when you ask them, they are no further along than when they told me. Why? A lack of commitment, discipline and laziness. They may even sit back and admire the accomplishments of others, but in order to get there, you have to sacrifice time, energy, and resources for one thing and apply those to the new thing. You only have so much time, energy and resources. So, you have to ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. What are some projects I really want and must do?
2. What will I need to give up doing so that I can commit myself to be disciplined to do them?
3. When do I want to have completed these projects?

I see so many people who blame everything and/or everyone else for their poor health, lack of energy, being overweight, etc. Or, they are pros at giving excuses as to why they are not persevering in their physical health and their spiritual health. Their personal motto becomes, over time, “I’ll get around to it.” My wife had a sign up in her classroom for her students that said: “Make an effort, not an excuse.” 

You have to be determined to persevere in anything. The Apostle Paul writes this in 1 Timothy 4:7b-8, “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; (8) for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (NASB). Notice Paul uses the word “discipline.” Hebrews 12:1-2 says this:

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2) fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (NASB).

Think for a moment about the discipline and commitment Jesus had to do what He did for us on the cross. New Testament scholar, author and pastor, R.C. Sproul writes this:

“One of my dreams for heaven is to learn how to play the violin. We started a church a few years ago. We have a string quartet, and they're so beautiful. I listen to violin music all the time. So I said, "Why wait? Why not get started now?" My teacher is a world-class performer from Russia. She trained with some of the best teachers in Russia, so she tries to impose the same rigid Russian strictness on me that she went through. 

When I'm doing something wrong, she smacks my hand and says, "nyet, nyet, nyet." I'm learning more Russian than I am violin from this woman, but I am having an absolute ball. When I have the opportunity, I'll practice three hours a day. I just love it. It is hard; I screech so much. But it is beautiful and worth it when I do get it right.

It is a discipline, and we are called to be disciples. Millions of people start piano lessons. They play one note with one finger and then they go to two fingers, and then two hands. There are different plateaus. At each plateau another percentage of people get off the boat and give it up. With people who start out learning the Bible, it's the same thing. I'll frequently ask people if they have read the whole Bible cover to cover. Not just new Christians; we're talking about people who have been Christians 20 or 30 years. A very small minority says that they've read the whole Bible.

Almost everyone has read Genesis because it is narrative. People start off with good intentions to read the Bible through, but when they get into the technical dimensions of the Levitical purification codes and that sort of thing, it's so foreign to the world they're living in that they get confused: they get lost; they lose interest; and then they give up.

In violin, if you're not trained yourself, you have to get under the discipline of somebody else. I have to see this teacher every week and put up with her smacking my hand and saying, "nyet, nyet, nyet," because if I didn't, I'd never get anywhere. For people who start out learning the Bible, it's the same thing. If you have trouble being disciplined, get in a Bible study group” (Source:  R. C. Sproul, "The Dick Staub Interview: R.C. Sproul's Testimony," ChristianityToday.com, 12-30-02).

Questions To Consider

1. Even though we are almost through with one month in the New Year, what are some projects you feel you must accomplish over the next few months or this year? Why are these projects so important to you and how do they help you build God’s kingdom?
2. What will you need to give up and allocate to accomplish this project or these projects?
3. R.C. Sproul talked about how accountability is important in being disciplined to do something, especially to grow spiritually. How will you make yourself accountable to someone else to ensure that you will finish these projects?
4. What spiritual goals do you have for yourself for 2025 and what plans do you have to ensure you do them?

Scripture To Meditate On: Colossians 3:23, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Heavenly Father, without Your involvement in our circumstances, we would have no hope. But with You, I can anticipate an outcome far beyond what human effort can achieve. Help me ask for Your help and be faithful to cry out to You both day and night. May Your Holy Spirit reveal how to pray, and thank You ahead of time for Your faithfulness to hear and answer my pleas. Please help me put my whole heart in what You want me to do and in those personal projects I want to do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly