Devotional Thursday

So.... I just had an idea. Sometimes "just-in" ideas are a bit scary, but I'm going with it before I talk myself out of it :) Not sure about you, but the Lord sends me special messages, in between all the "junk", in my in-box. It comes in different forms, but today's really hit me. I'd love to share it with you. And it fact, I think I'll be more intentional about sharing in choosing a scheduled day to place it into my routine. Thursday sounds great to me, why not. It's not the beginning, not the end, not even the middle, so Thursday it is.

Today's devotional comes from 66 Love Letters: A Conversation with God that Invites You into His Story by Dr. Larry Crabb.

The Book of Galatians

God says, your preoccupation with satisfaction is the corruption beneath your compulsions. Your expectation of feeling everything you want to feel in this fallen world renders you vulnerable to false teachers who, in the name of My Son, offer you a strategy that promises to let you feel as complete now as you will feel forever in heaven.

Like My followers in the province of Galatia, you're drawn to a perversion of My story. And your freedom to love no matter how you feel is replaced by slavery to a compulsive need to feel good about yourself before you feel able to love another.

Gospel freedom means neither to indulge your whims nor keep My rules. Whim-indulgers and rule-keepers are slaves to the corruption within them that demands a kind of satisfaction My Son will not provide for you in this life.

My Son has set you free to love, to believe I am good and that the good story I am telling is unfolding under His control. Faith in Me and hope for tomorrow frees you to love today.

And loving with divine power releases a kind of joy into your soul that nothing else can bring.