Good Morning Renewed Fountains of Living Water! Amen! Yes Praise and worship our renewing, life-giving Father who send us recharged to love and help others. Amen! Thanks Lord! That is our Body, united in You, love and mission! Use us well and may we steward well all your blessings, even refining love you bring. Renew our thinking and help us stay focused on and following You . Shine! Amen!
I have another busy day but wanted to share God's heart with and for you as He did with me through our devotionals and during my quiet time. God whispers His love over us and shares His heart as He prepares and moves us to go live and love more like Jesus. He refines us and shapes us. Don't grumble or complain but receive it as His love for you and His help to become more like Jesus and to grow in Christlikeness and your purposes. he does have great plans for you and is inviting you to join Him . Will you? I'm praising God for you and praying for Him to transform, mold and shape and use you and us for His glorry according to His good plans. Yes Lord, Your Kingdom come and will be done in, through, and around meand us! Bring revival and revive us and our communities. Bring Love and Living Water alive! Thanks! Send me! Amen!
ODB
Fountains or Drains?
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. Philippians 2:3
Sometimes a bit of wisdom drops in when we least expect it. That happened recently as I was reading an article about American football player Travis Kelce. A frustrated coach once told him, “Everybody you meet in this world is either a fountain or a drain.” You can probably figure out which one Kelce was being!
Perhaps all of us have a bit of both elements in us. But at any given moment, we’re likely behaving one way or the other. And our call to follow Jesus means becoming more fountain, less drain.
I hear a similar idea in Philippians 2, where Paul challenges us to imitate Jesus’ humility and focus on others. Paul contrasts what drains life from others with what fills them up: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (vv. 3-4). A bit later in this chapter, he adds bluntly, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing” (v. 14).
What does it look like to be a drain? Being self-focused and arrogant; complaining and arguing. And being a fountain? Paul says of Timothy, “I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare” (v. 20).
Are we being more like a fountain or a drain? That’s a question worth pondering as we seek to bless others.
By Adam Holz
REFLECT & PRAY
What can cause you to be more like a drain than a fountain in your relationships? How can you be more of a fountain to others?
Dear Father, please help me to be a fountain of life who pours encouragement and hope into everyone I encounter.
Paul sets the context for his theme of humility early in this letter. Writing while imprisoned, he says, “All of you share in God’s grace with me” (Philippians 1:7). Being equal recipients of His grace ought to have motivated the Philippian church to “value others above [themselves]” (2:3). Key to this is the way they were to live before a watching world. By living blamelessly, they’d be “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation” (v. 15). As they lived lives of humble service to the world, they’d “shine among them like stars in the sky” (v. 15) and be fountains of encouragement.
Tim Gustafson
UR: Ltlle Cake
Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. - 1 Kings 17:13 (KJV)
Sometimes God helps us in unexpected ways, just as God helped the widow in ’s scripture. Perhaps when she saw Elijah she hoped that he was bringing food. Instead, he came asking her for a cake!
Why would God ask the woman to make a cake for a stranger when she was the one in need? Sometimes God does the same with us. We may be busy or going through a difficult time, but God brings us a neighbor in need. How do we respond? Can we give them a smile, a hug, or a word of encouragement, even as we’re experiencing challenges?
Elijah’s request wasn’t out of selfishness. He was following God’s instructions. But I wonder if he felt ashamed, begging from a widow. And I wonder if she was offended by his request. Ultimately, both obeyed God, and God blessed them with food during a famine. When God asks us to share something we’ve saved for ourselves, let us remember the woman’s obedience and trust that God can use even our small contributions to make a big difference.
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's Prayer
Father God, help us to serve someone in need and to do it with a willing and generous spirit. Amen.
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