Deepen Your Faith: Weekly Devotionals

Day 1 (Monday):
“The Dead Space”

My wife and I have been renting for a year and a half now. There’s a bathroom in our place that could use some attention. But I’m not touching it. Why? Because it’s not my home. I’m not going to pour time and money into something I’m walking away from.

There’s a strange freedom in that. When you know you’re leaving, you stop obsessing over what won’t last. You start prioritizing what travels with you.

Scripture: Hebrews 13:14 Additional reading: Hebrews 11:13-16 – “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

The author of Hebrews closes his letter by reminding us that we have no lasting city here. We’re looking for the one that’s coming. This way of thinking is not pessimism about the present. It’s clarity about what actually lasts.

When you live like you’re leaving, your grip loosens on the things that won’t travel with you. And your hands open to what will.

Reflect: What “dead space” in your life have you been pouring energy into as though it will last forever? What would change if you held it more loosely?

Day 2 (Tuesday):
“Outside the Gate”

Nobody wants to be on the outside. We spend enormous energy trying to belong, to fit in, to be accepted by the right people in the right rooms.

But in ancient Israel, “outside the camp” wasn’t just uncomfortable. It was where the unclean were exiled. Where the lawless were executed. Where sin offerings were burned. It was the place of shame, rejection, and death.

Scripture: Hebrews 13:11-12 Additional reading: Exodus 33:7 – “Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.”

But when Israel’s camp became defiled by idolatry, God’s presence moved outside. Anyone who truly wanted to meet with God had to leave the camp to find him.

Jesus suffered outside the gate. He went to the place of shame so we could be brought into glory. He descended into our rejection so we could ascend into his acceptance.

The world’s “inside” isn’t where God is. Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is walk away from the table everyone’s fighting to sit at.

Reflect: Where have you been striving to stay “inside” at the cost of following Jesus “outside”? What approval are you chasing that he never asked you to earn?

Day 3 (Wednesday):
“You Can’t Have Both”

We love options. We want the security of the old and the freedom of the new. The comfort of fitting in and the adventure of following Jesus. The approval of the crowd and the intimacy with the Savior.

But some things don’t combine.

Scripture: Hebrews 13:10 Additional reading: Matthew 6:24 – “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”

The author of Hebrews says, “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.” In other words, the Christian altar is the cross of Christ. It’s not a piece of furniture in a building. And you can’t have both.

You can’t cling to the shadows and also embrace the substance. You can’t keep offering your own works and also enjoy the benefits of the work Christ already finished. You can’t stay inside where it’s safe and also follow the Savior who went outside.

The shadow isn’t worth keeping when the substance has arrived.

Reflect: What “shadow” are you still holding onto? What would it look like to release it and fully embrace what Christ has already done?

Day 4 (Thursday):
“Resident or Sojourner?”

There’s a difference between someone building a house and someone pitching a tent. The tent-pitcher doesn’t tile the bathroom. Doesn’t landscape the yard. Doesn’t argue about property lines.

Not because those things don’t matter. But because they don’t matter to someone who’s leaving.

Scripture: Hebrews 13:1-6 Additional reading: 1 Peter 2:11 – “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”

The resident says, “I’ll love the people who think like me and help me.” The sojourner says, “I’ll love the broken—and point them to the One who healed me.”

The resident says, “I’ll give when it benefits me.” The sojourner says, “Why hoard what I can’t take with me? What I give in Jesus’ name travels with me.”

The resident says, “Security comes from accumulation. The more I have, the safer I am.” The sojourner says, “The Lord is my helper. My security isn’t in my portfolio—it’s in my Father.”

If this world is all there is, the resident mindset makes perfect sense. Protect what you’ve built. Fight for your place. But if you’re leaving—if there’s a city coming that makes every earthly city look like a tent—everything changes.

You start holding things differently. You start living differently.

Reflect: In which area of your life—relationships, money, security—are you living more like a resident than a sojourner? What’s one thing you could hold more loosely today?

Day 5 (Friday):
“Traveling Light”

Moving is clarifying. You pick up that box you haven’t opened in three years and finally ask the question: Is this worth carrying?

If you are like me, the answer, more often than not, is no.

Scripture: Hebrews 13:15 Additional reading: Hebrews 12:1 – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

The author of Hebrews says that our response to going outside the camp isn’t grudging endurance. It isn’t teeth-gritting perseverance. It’s praise. Continually. Through Jesus. As the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

That’s the posture of someone who’s traveling light. When your hands aren’t full of stuff you’re protecting, they’re free to be raised in worship. When your heart isn’t cluttered with anxiety about what you might lose, it’s open to gratitude for what you’ve been given.

That dead space in my rental? It’ll stay dead. Because I’m not staying. But the dead spaces in my heart—the places I’ve walled off from Jesus, the areas where I’ve been living like a resident—those I want to open up.

Because I am leaving. And I want to travel light.

Reflect: What weight are you carrying that Jesus never asked you to pick up? What would it feel like to set it down and travel lighter this week?