The Flog – The Fabry Log

I hope you had a good weekend and that you’re ready to tackle this short work week. Thanks for joining us for 40 days of prayer—can’t believe we’re on day 7. I hope God is drawing nearer to you each day as you draw near to him.

I love this response to Saturday’s devotion when I included a letter from my friend, Robert:

Hi Chris and Robert,

I am glad you are doing the 40 day prayer, my daughter is with me on this.

I can relate to what Robert says. I also wondered if it really matters that we pray. But I realized this morning that God is “All Mighty” and he can take care of my problems and the world’s problems all by himself. The fact that he wants to include me in caring about the things that he cares about and have me watch him do His work is amazing to me. When He invites us to pray he wants our company because he delights in our union with his Son and our fellowship with the Spirit. As we see God working through our prayers, we get encouraged, we start to care for others and forget ourselves. When this happens, we realize there are others united with Christ doing the same for us.

God bless you.

That's a great perspective on our participation in prayer, and I want to encourage you to continue in prayer for your own life, for your family, your church family, our nation and its leaders, but most of all that God would begin a work in you and me today that will impact eternity. God wants to use you and me to change the world a heart at a time. May he do that work today.

Devotion 7

Read Philippians 2:1-11 slowly. Meditate on it anew today, as if this were the first time you were reading it. This is a letter written nearly 2,000 years ago by the Apostle Paul, but it is living and active today. Let it sink in deeply.

Let’s concentrate today on verse 3, one of the pivotal sentences of this passage. Here are three different translations of the text:

NIV Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

KJV Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

NLT Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

This seems like a tall order for people to follow. It’s not just “Do not commit murder,” or “Do not tell a lie,” we’re being asked, as followers of Christ, to act in a way that...well, is impossible to act. At least that's how it feels to me. How can we accomplish this lofty goal? I don't know about you, but I don't have an off-switch on my selfish button.

How important is our thought process in accomplishing this? In other words, this action begins in the mind and heart and works itself out in our actions. Explain this in your own words.

Now, re-write the verse in a personal way. Insert your own name and write it as a longer prayer to God, asking him to change your heart toward specific people. Ask him for an opportunity today to live this verse out with your family, your friends, your coworkers. See what he will do to point out how much selfish ambition we really have in us.

May God give you fresh eyes and ears to see your own sin. And may he give you hope today that you are becoming that “new creation” he promised to bring forth.