Praise, Part 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Devotion

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Transcript

Good day. As we start this day, let’s start it with some time with God. We’re on this great theme of praise this week, and you know, praise is not something that you should have to summon up in your life. OK, I need to praise God. No, it should just be the overflow of all that God is doing in your heart and life. God is at work in your life.

You may have been too busy to notice it or to recognise it. You may not have been stopping to spend time with God, which gives you a sensitivity to what He’s doing in your life. But if you stop, if you build your relationship with Him, you will see how much God is doing in your life, and your heart will be filled with praise.

So let’s read a passage on this theme today from Romans chapter 8. I want to read verses 12-17. The apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome, and he says to them:

So then, brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh (that’s your old sinful nature), for if you are living according to the flesh you must die. But if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh. You will live for all who are being led by the spirit of God. These are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons. By which we cry out Abba Father.

The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

Well there’s a lot in this passage, but just notice a couple of main things.

All who are being led by the spirit of God, these are sons of God.

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When you come to God and you are adopted into His family, He places His Holy Spirit into your life. That’s God actively involved in your life. All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. God wants to lead you. He wants you to know His direction, His guidance in your life.

Of course, if God is going to make His will known to you, you must respond and say, yes, Lord, as He leads you. That’s when you become more sensitive to Him.

But notice what He says. You have not received a spirit of slavery, leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba, Father and the Holy Spirit, he says, bears witness with our spirit that that has happened, that we really are children of God. So we don’t have this spirit that leads to fear, but rather a spirit of joy.

That comes from our relationship with God and the work of His Spirit in our lives. That joy overflows.

Someone has said, when was the last time you laughed for the sheer joy of your salvation?

People are not attracted to sombre doctrines. There’s no persuasive power in a gloomy and morbid religion. Let the world see your joy, and you won’t be able to keep them away. To be filled with God is to be filled with joy.

That is so right.

And Alexander McLaren has said seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyful sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life. That is so right, as God leads you, as you experience the incredible life as a child of God, let your mind be filled with a sense of all that God is doing in your life.

And fear will be driven away and will be replaced with joy.

I’m John North.

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