Reflection #1The most amazing part of the birth story for me is always Mary’s words of acceptance to the angel, “May it be to me as you have said.” It blows my mind every time. It has motivated me to pray a simple prayer for D’VINE this week - “May it be to us as you have said, for nothing is impossible.”
Reflection #2While reading Luke 6, I got a sense that God wants individuals in our community (myself as much as anyone else) to know that He wants us to come to Him to be filled and that He blesses those who are patient enough to wait to be satisfied by Him. It is better to hunger now in expectation of being satisfied by Him than to fill ourselves with other sources.
Reflection #3The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Luke 10: 17-20
This passage confirmed some things some of us on the prayer team have been hearing for D'VINE. While it sounds simple, it is often easy to get busy and focused on tasks instead of on what should be our focus - Jesus. If we focus on raising Him up, the rest will follow. We must praise Him through the "busyness" of what D'VINE is facing right now. Our very hearts must praise Him with the kind of praise that comes from pressing into deeper intimacy with Him.
This passage specifically took this further for me, and God added to it through other things I have been reading about spiritual freedom. We are being confronted with opposition - from the world but also from the supernatural acting in this world. If we focus on this opposition, even through something as seemingly innocent as being excited that we have been given power and authority over it, our focus is off. Instead, we should be Christ-focused. We should be focused on where God is leading, and exerting our authority and power only in those places that get in the way of our primary task - the ministry of the Kingdom, including loving, serving, preaching, teaching, praying, etc. We must be concerned about who we are and have been called to be in Christ rather than letting the enemy set the agenda and the battlefield. We must rejoice not in the power, but the source of the power and the fact that He has chosen us to be His.
Reflection #4In Luke 17, Jesus uses a metaphor regarding a master and his servants. He says that the servants shouldn't expect to be praised by the master for simply doing their duty. While reading this, I just sense that the message for our community is that we shouldn't be serving to seek affirmation from others. We are simply servants doing what we are called to do. My prayer is that we'd find security in God's love for us and that we wouldn't be looking for pats on the back for how we serve.
