3 John: Pt. 1 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. As you head into your work week, don’t forget to keep God in the center of your week, the center of your life, and the center of this Monday. That’s why we start each weekday morning right here together, opening God’s word, the Bible, and listening to what He has to say to us. We want to keep God in the center of our lives and not just a commitment to God, but a relationship with God.

That’s why we listen to him as we read the Bible, and then we talk to him as we respond in prayer about what he’s saying to us. Make sure even this morning as we listen to what God says to us that you take a little bit of time to say, OK, God, and talk to him about what he’s saying to you about your personal life.

I want to go each day this week to a book of the Bible that you probably have not spent much, if any time in. It’s the tiny book of 3rd John in the Bible, one of the one-chapter books of the Bible that fits on one page in your Bible.

It’s a letter from the apostle John to one of his friends who’s an elder in a church, a friend named Gaius.

This is what he says to him.

The elder, that’s John.

To the beloved Gaius whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health as it goes well with your soul.

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Well, just such a normal practical way of writing a letter to someone, isn’t it? I’m praying for you. What a great thing to say to your friends. I’m praying for you because the reality is God gets involved in your friends’ lives when you pray.

For them, praying isn’t just hoping out loud, it’s talking to the God of the universe, the one who is able to do whatever he chooses, and he chooses to respond to our prayers. I pray that all may go well with you.

And that you may be in good health, so he’s praying for his physical health as it goes well with your soul. He’s praying for his spiritual health as well. And as you think about your friends’ lives, don’t forget that they need both kinds of health, and so do you. You’re a blessed person if you have friends in your life who pray for your physical health and for your spiritual health.

Because the reality is that we have both a material physical nature, our bodies, and we have a spiritual nature. We have a spirit and a soul, and these need to be healthy as well. So often we spend so much time worrying about the health of our body. We get out, we exercise every day, we take vitamins. We try to eat healthily.

Sometimes we get on kicks about this or that health issue and what you should or shouldn’t drink or eat.

But the reality of life is that the things that are not seen, as Paul puts it, are so much more important than the things which are seen because the things which are not seen are eternal.

And this includes your spirit and soul. Your relationship with God is the most important factor in your life, because when your relationship with God is good and healthy, it doesn’t matter what else goes wrong in your life. There’s an inner peace, a strength that comes from the role God plays in your life.

Keep God front and center in your life, and as you pray for your friends, pray for their spiritual lives as well as their physical health and their physical needs. What’s going on in your life today on the physical level? Are you needing help financially? Are you needing help in your health, your physical life?

And what is happening in your spiritual life and in the issues of your soul and how can you bring God into the center of all of that.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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