Deepen Your Faith: Daily Devotionals

DAY 1 — MONDAY
No Spare Parts in God’s Kingdom

Kim held up two Ziploc bags in the basement this week while we were packing to move. Screws. Bolts. Wooden dowels. Leftover brackets from years of furniture assembly. You probably have a bag like that somewhere yourself. Every time you put something together, a few pieces are left over. The manufacturer includes them just in case someone makes a mistake.

That is what spare parts are for. Mistakes.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:7 — “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

Additional reading: Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

God does not make mistakes. He knew exactly who you were and what your gifts were when he brought you to this place. Some of you have remarkable stories about how you ended up here, stories that can only be explained by the hand of God. That is not an accident. That is not a spare part showing up just in case. That is a person placed with intention and purpose in a specific community at a specific time.

Paul says grace was given to each one of us. Not to some of us. Not to the most qualified among us. Each one. And the measure of that grace corresponds to the gifts of Christ himself. You are not waiting to be useful. You already are.

Reflect: What would change about how you show up to this community if you genuinely believed you were placed here on purpose, with something no one else can offer?

DAY 2 — TUESDAY
The Alloy That Cannot Be Replicated

Think about a dish that is made with only one ingredient. Bland. Predictable. Forgettable. Now think about a dish made from a dozen different flavors working together. Something complex. Something you can’t quite place but can’t stop tasting. The difference is not just variety. It is the tension between distinct things that makes the whole so rich.

That is what Paul is describing when he talks about the church.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:4 — “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.”

Additional reading: 1 Corinthians 12:14 — “For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”

We are one. Paul was clear about that last week. One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith. But unity does not mean uniformity. Different metals forged together create an alloy stronger than any one of them alone. Two people in the same church can have completely different spiritual gifts and completely different approaches to the same problem and both be right. The person gifted to speak truth directly and the person gifted to show mercy quietly are not in conflict. They are the design.

The tension you feel between yourself and a fellow Christian just might not a sign that something is broken. It could be the very thing God is using to make you both stronger.

Reflect: Where in your church community do you experience the most friction with someone different from you, and what might that friction be producing that neither of you could produce alone?

DAY 3 — WEDNESDAY
The King Who Gave Instead of Received

When a general returned to Jerusalem after a military victory, the city knew what to expect. A procession. The conquered paraded in chains as proof of the victory. And then gifts presented to the king, tributes from the newly subject peoples, a display of the new order. The king received. Everyone else gave.

Paul quotes this image from Psalm 68. And then he flips it completely.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:8 — “Therefore it says, when he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”

Additional reading: James 1:17 — “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Jesus ascended, the conquering King of Kings! But instead of receiving. He gives. The God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who needs nothing from any of us, stands at the height of his ascension with his hands open. And they are nail-scarred. He is pressing gifts into ours.

Jesus ascended so that he might fill all things. The higher he rises, the more his presence spreads. A mayor’s influence reaches one city. A governor’s reaches a state. Jesus has ascended to the height of all heights, which means his presence fills everything. The gifts he gives us are not tools he hands off and walks away from. He is in them. He is with us as we use them.

Reflect: How does knowing that Jesus gives rather than receives change the way you think about what you have to offer him?

DAY 4 — THURSDAY
Moses Had Every Excuse and Used Them All

A burning bush. A voice from inside the fire. A direct commission from the God of the universe. And Moses still said no. Not just once. He built a list. Who am I to go? What if they don’t believe me? What will I say? And finally, at the bottom of the list, the real one: I’m not a good speaker. I stutter. I stammer. Send someone else.

If Moses could stand in front of a burning bush and argue, the rest of us are in good company.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:11–12 — “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”

Additional reading: 2 Corinthians 12:9 — “But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul identifies four common excuses for not using the gift God has given us: the season isn’t right, the skill isn’t enough, the significance isn’t there, the sanctification isn’t complete. Moses used the skill one. God’s response was not to agree with him. It was to say, who made your mouth?

The priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan were too busy. Amos felt insignificant. Paul called himself the chief of sinners. Every one of them was right about their limitations. Not one of those limitations stopped God.

Your excuse may be accurate. It is not final.

Reflect: Which of the four excuses, season, skill, significance, or sanctification, do you most often reach for, and what would it look like to lay it down this week?

DAY 5 — FRIDAY
Your Gift Is Hiding Behind What You Love

There is a state that psychologists call flow. The Hungarian researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent decades studying it. He described it as a state so absorbing, so enjoyable, that people will pursue it even at great cost, simply for the sake of doing it. You have felt it. The hours that disappear. The work that doesn’t feel like work. The thing you would do even if no one paid you.

I asked you a question two years ago that didn’t feel very spiritual. What do you love doing?

Scripture: Ephesians 4:7 — “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

Additional reading: Proverbs 18:16 — “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.”

The theologian Frederick Buechner said that God calls us to the place where our deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meet. I believe that for many of us, the spiritual gift God has given us is not buried in a personality test or hidden in a theological category. It is sitting just behind the thing we enjoy the most.

You can play basketball in children’s ministry. You can use a love of gardening to serve someone who can’t tend their own yard. You can take whatever puts you in a state of flow and ask one question: how does this meet someone’s hunger?

God does not waste what he made in you. He repurposes it. The hobby becomes the ministry. The passion becomes the gift. The gift becomes the point where your gladness and the world’s hunger finally meet.

Reflect: What activity puts you in a state of flow, and what would it look like to offer that specific thing in service to this community?