Receive God's gifts by reading His Word. Listen to passage & devotional: Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 3: The Written Word of God We confess that this Word of God was not sent nor delivered by the will of men, but that holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit, as Peter says. Afterwards our God— because of the special care he has for us and our salvation— commanded his servants, the prophets and apostles, to commit this revealed Word to writing. He himself wrote with his own finger the two tables of the law. Therefore we call such writings holy and divine Scriptures. Summary The Church has always been comprised of two distinct types of Christians: those who get it, and those who don't. Paul classifies these two distinctives as the strong and the weak. Strong Christians get that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone because of Christ alone and understand that these truths have massive implications in every aspect of life. Weak Christians are still Christians, in that they are just as saved as the strong Christians, even if they don't fully understand how or why and consequently don't apply these truths to life as they ought. Most of chapter fourteen and fifteen in the book of Romans unpack how the strong and weak ought to relate to one another in Christ's Church. Getting along was difficult for the newly founded churches when Paul wrote this, just as it is now, and will continue to be until Christ returns and puts and end to sin forever. But in the midst of this lesson in how we should be modeling Christ's selflessness in our interactions with one another, we get a big insight into God's purpose in compiling all sixty six books of the Bible. All of it - from the very familiar portions to the lesser known passages - all of it was written to teach you, "so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide, you might have hope (v4)." Notice that you don't earn this endurance and encouragement simply because you've read a bunch of ancient words. Rather, God gives you this endurance and encouragement (v5a); but neither does it just float down to you from heaven, rather, God gives it to you as you do the hard work of reading and understanding these ancient words. Dig Deeper Most of us skip over the initial pages of the instruction manual that came with the latest gadget - that is, if you even bother to read the instruction manual at all! You know the pages I mean: the ones that have paragraph after paragraph that begin with the words WARNING or DANGER in big, bold letters. We don't really need to read these words that a lawyer somewhere insisted be included because we know enough not to stick our finger into the sharp part or plug the thing in while we're sitting in the bathtub. The problem is we tend to apply the same attitude to large swaths of the Bible as well. Sure, we like the parts about Jesus or the stories of God's miraculous power on display, but on a percentage basis, those passages comprise a pretty small portion of the whole. The rest of it gets left unread, because we just figure it's either irrelevant or common sense that we'll figure out in some more practical way. You need to know that the whole Bible - both the New Testament and the Old, both the familiar and the obscure - all of was written so that as you read it, God can give you endurance encouragement. So if you want those things, commit yourself to the hard work of reading and understanding "everything that was written in the past to teach us (v4)." AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: "The God who gives endurance and encouragement (v5)" ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for these gifts that He gives you through His Word, and pray for the desire and ability to read more and more of His Word, "so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (v6)." ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Acts 2

The second greatest book ever written doesn't have a word in it! Listen to passage & devotional: Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God We know him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse. Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for his glory and for the salvation of his own. Summary In our polarized, fragmented world, there are very few things that everyone can agree on, but the beauty of God's creation is one of those things. People drive thousands of miles to look out over a grand vista. As busy as life is, almost everybody stops for a moment to take in a glorious sunset. But God didn't add all of this stunning beauty in creation just so that we could have a nice view to enjoy every now and then. Each part of nature, from the tiniest microscopic organism to the biggest of galaxies make up pages of a 'book,' as our Confession describes it. Notice all of the communication oriented verbs that David attributes to nature: The heavens declare the glory of God; The skies proclaim the work of His hands; They pour forth speech and reveal (tells - LEB) knowledge; Their voice goes out into all the earth. All of God's wondrous creation has one unified goal that each aspect of it communicates in a slightly different, yet harmonious way: it declares / proclaims / reveals the glory of its creator! While it is nice to have at least one thing that still unifies us as people, the sad fact is that most people aren't hearing what their eyes are seeing. Although God speaks through creation, and does so in a way that transcends the language barrier, not "a sound is heard from it (v3)." The second greatest 'book' ever written doesn't have a single 'word' in it! But yet it still tells so much about the One who wrote it. Dig Deeper We understand that God communicates Himself to us in two different ways: through special revelation, meaning scripture (which we'll dig into later), and more generally, through creation. But as we'll see, sin has drastically impaired our ability to understand what God says about Himself through His creation. Just as you might come to a incorrect conclusion trying to read something without your glasses on, most people come to massively incorrect conclusions trying to read the book of nature with unaided eyes. But as we'll see throughout this week, as a born again Christian, you've been given a set of 'spectacles' which enables you to correctly understand the knowledge nature declares through the lens of scripture. So learn, explore, study, and analyze as much of it as you can! Eagerly come to know your Creator more and more through it. Psalm 19 is a great reminder that there is absolutely no dichotomy between faith and science, as long as you learn to properly read what the creation is truly declaring / proclaiming / revealing! AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose glory is beautifully testified to by His amazing creation; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for this beautiful universe, and pray that more and more you will come to know Him through it. ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Mark 11

2 Corinthians 3:1–6 (NIV) CONTEXT: Some people in the Corinthian church questioned Paul's authority as that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6  best things we've done in our lives are as but "filthy rags" before our perfectly holy God (Isaiah 64 :6)?

The guilt you feel is actually a good thing, but don't feel it for too long! Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 126 Q. What does the fifth request mean? A. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” means, Because of Christ’s blood, do not hold against us, poor sinners that we are, any of the sins we do or the evil that constantly clings to us. Forgive us just as we are fully determined, as evidence of your grace in us, to forgive our neighbors Summary Is guilt a good or bad thing? Nobody really likes experiencing the pain of guilt. You've likely envied people just a bit who seem able to float through life guilt free, even after doing really awful things. But David here in Psalm 51 reminds you once again that guilt, as painful as it can be, is actually a good thing, in that it brings us to confess our sin before our gracious Father. David expresses the inescapable nature of guilt that covenant people experience when he writes that his sin is "always before him." Know that you'll never be able to outrun or hide from your guilt; the only solution is to confess it here as David does and then experience the unfailing, forgiving love and compassion we read about yesterday. While there certainly are lots of people that get hurt when we sin, the primary offense is against God Himself. Yet David isn't bitter about God, even after receiving God's righteous verdict and justified judgment. David knows God isn't being arbitrary or capricious, because David's conscience had already made him quite aware of his guilt. Sin and guilt is so intertwined with you that it's wrapped up in your DNA. Not only were you born into sin, you were conceived in it! This is why the New Testament emphasizes your need to not just change your behavior, but to change you very nature; you need to go from being in Adam and his sin to being grafted into Christ and His righteousness. Dig Deeper Maybe you've heard the analogy that if you had a treatable cancer in you, it would be much better if it generated a symptom that made you feel miserable than if it just grew undetected. In seeking relief from the symtoms, the cancer could be treated and removed. So it is with your sin. Life might seem to be much better for people who are able to mask their guilt or even ignore it all together, but the true advantage comes to those like David, whose guilt enables them to recognize their transgression and sin so they can remove it by confessing it to God. Sin infected you the moment you were conceived. Be grateful for the guilt that makes you aware of its presence in your life, and then follow Jesus' command to pray that your guilt-inducing debts will be forgiven. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father; against you, you only, have we sinned and done what is evil in your sight; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that God will, through Christ, forgive your debts and alleviate your guilt; ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Revelation 14

to pray continually; ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - John

One short daily prayer can alleviate so much of your stress & anxiety. Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 125 Q. What does the fourth request mean? A. “Give us today our daily bread” means, Do take care of all our physical needs so that we come to know that you are the only source of everything good, and that neither our work and worry nor your gifts can do us any good without your blessing. And so help us to give up our trust in creatures and to put trust in you alone. Summary The opening word to today's teaching from Jesus functions like a big STOP sign. When you see the word therefore, you have to stop and ask, what is it there for? In this case, Jesus is saying that because you should be focused on building up treasure in heaven rather than on earth, which is what He says in the preceding passage, therefore do not worry about your physical needs in this life. If even the birds of the air and the flowers of the field thrive by simply relying upon what your Father provides for them, you can too, since you're much more valuable than they are, says Jesus. But don't jump too far ahead here. Jesus isn't calling you to take a life long vacation as you count on your daily bread getting shipped down from heaven each day. His command here is to not worry, not to not work hard. Think of how busy the birds keep from dawn to dusk and how the flower is doing what it was created to do whenever the sun is shining. You don't need to look far - perhaps even within your own life - to see the awful result of running after all sorts of worldly stuff like the pagans do. They might gain a bunch of things, but they have no rest, no peace and no certainty that whatever they've accumulated today will be here tomorrow. In short, they're often drowning in anxiety. Instead, Jesus calls you to seek first His kingdom and righteousness, and He makes an extraordinary promise to those who do: all these things you need will be given to you as well. Dig Deeper Jesus here is telling you to make a shift in attitude more so than a change in your daily activities. If you're at the point in life where you're part of the workforce, don't quit your job. When you're at your job, keep your head down and be productive. Remember, working is one of the primary ways God calls us to worship Him! But do some quick mental math and tally up how many hours a day you spend productively working versus how many hours a day you spend worrying, stressing, and fretting about the gulf between what you have and what you want. How different would things look for you if you had focused your resources on seeking the kingdom rather than worrying about stuff? That's the brilliance of the short line that Jesus commanded you to pray: "give me each day the bread I need today." He goes on here to tell you to not worry about the other things in life, or even about what will happen tomorrow. It's not that other stuff or planning for the future isn't important, it's just not worth worrying about when you can be absolutely certain your Father will provide. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who created the birds and flowers, and provides for all His creatures' needs; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will seek first the Kingdom and that you'll be able to trust that your Father will give you the things you need; ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Revelation 8

But in Romans 6, he goes on to argue that this type of thinking doesn’t align with the gospel message But the good news, as Paul speaks of in Romans 6, includes ending the reign of sin.

But as we keep reading in Deuteronomy 6, it becomes clear that God has always had one plan of salvation

Join the Lord's people every time His call to worship rings out in your church.

Baptism doesn't just join you to the Church, it joins you to Christ. Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 69 Q. When you were baptized, it was much more than a photo op: you were spiritually joined into Christ's death Those who've been joined to Christ's death have also been joined to His resurrection so that they may