Month: April 2025

Read James 1:2-4

Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash

This week, let’s take a look at joy. Some connect joy to a happy occasion like a wedding or the birth of a child. But James writes about a different view.

A Different View of Joy
He urges his readers to find joy in their trials, not because suffering is fun. Instead, James tells them they can expect those difficult experiences to produce patience. As uncomfortable as it sounds, if you will choose joy, the Holy Spirit will complete His work in you and cause you to have everything you need.

The joy comes from the Holy Spirit as you trust Him to live through you, even when you are going through trials. Everyone suffers from something. For you, it might be a financial setback, conflict among family members, or a chronic health problem.

Nehemiah instructs the Israelites who returned from exile not to grieve on a holy day, but instead to believe that the joy of the Lord would be their strength.

God’s Joy, Our Strength
When you feel weak, you can rejoice in the Lord who died to pay for your sins, who rose again to give you newness of life, who ascended into heaven and now sits at God’s right hand, and who will come again. Allow His joy to be your strength today.

When trouble finds you this week, trust the Holy Spirit to live in you and through you so you can respond with joy. Allow Him to work patience into your life and give you everything you need to respond to it.

And finally, a blessing from the apostle Paul (Romans 15:13), “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope.”

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered what to write about? Good ideas come from your brain. Sometimes they are based on your experience. If you have lived through it, you can write about it. Or, if you’ve helped someone else live through it, you can write about it.

Other times, your ideas might be based on research you’ve done about a specific topic. You could include your opinions along with the facts you state. If you have read an interesting book or listened to a podcast that you found helpful, you can write about it.

You can find fantastic ideas running around inside your brain.

*Grab a pad of paper and a pen or open up a blank document on your computer.

*Capture a question you would like to answer.

*Brainstorm three to five potential answers.

*Under each answer, write three to five supporting details.

*Keep your answers and details to three or four words.

*Include a strong verb in each line.

Congratulations, you’re building an outline. When you plan what you want to write, the writing comes more easily.

Twice a month, I write a devotion for the church newsletter. I will repost those here. These are posts from a series on the fruit of the Spirit.

Read John 15:1-11
Read Galatians 5:16-25

It’s God’s will for you to bear fruit. At first glance, this sounds like a lot of work. And yet, it’s not the kind of work you would expect. In John 15:8, Jesus says to His disciples, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” This work has more to do with your attitude than actual physical labor.

Earlier in the chapter (verses 4 and 5), Jesus explains what He means.

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit, for apart from Me, you can do nothing.”

Jesus told His disciples to abide in Him. Abide means to stay, rest, remain, and even to wait for. If you want to bear fruit, first, connect yourself to Christ. Jesus gave the disciples a picture so they could understand His meaning. He compared abiding in Christ to a vine and branches.

The vine supplies the nutrients that the branch needs to grow. The branch draws its nutrients from the vine and those nutrients allow it to bear fruit. In this case, Jesus referred to grape vines. They grew up from the ground, the branches grew off of the vines, and grapes grew off of the branches.

The branches didn’t have to work hard to produce grapes. They didn’t groan in the middle of the night so they could force the grapes to appear. Instead, those branches stayed connected to the vine, received nourishment, and naturally produced grapes.

In Galatians 5:22-23, the apostle Paul writes about the kinds of fruit Christians can show with their lives. He writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

As you rest and remain in Christ, trusting Him to live through you, then you can also trust the Holy Spirit to produce this kind of fruit in your life. No one gets this right every time. There will be times when the Holy Spirit prunes away the parts that aren’t bearing fruit, and it will hurt. You can thank Him for the pruning, even when it hurts because it will help you be more like Christ.

May God richly bless you in the coming week as you abide in Christ.