Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 1 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Persistent Prayer” (LISTEN HERE).
What is important to you?
While a simple question, it causes one to pause and seek to figure out the answer. You can look at your calendar and see where you spend your time. You can look at your finances and see where you spend your money. You can audit your social media use and see what you keep watching.
But maybe when you do these “life audits” you realize that what you say is important and what you are doing are two different things. As a result, you may seek to adjust and align what you do with what’s important.
As a church, we can SAY things are important. But again as we evaluate our activities individually and collectively, the audit might say something different.
At Crosspoint, we want to be intentional about prioritizing the things we value most. We have determined seven values for our congregation to embrace and put into practice. The next seven weeks will introduce those values.
As a devotion reader, don’t check out on us, but rather journey with us…I think you will find many of the values we are seeking to embrace and put into practice are ones that will be a blessing in your life, and perhaps your church as well.
Before we get into the specifics, there is a “heart” behind all of these values.
Really all that becomes important in life is because God made us important in his eternal plan. It’s his grace, underserved love, that valued us first that motivates, in facts COMPELS us to live for him. The Apostle Paul captured this reality in 2 Corinthians 5:14
2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
All we value in life becomes valuable because of the love of Christ. Period.
None of the things we do in life are driven by fear of punishment, but by gratitude of grace. That’s just what the love of Christ does. It leads us to value the things that are valuable to God. As a result, here is the value of values:
- They define how we desire to live the love of Christ!
- They encourage positive actions which will bless our church family and ministry effort and discourage action that would cause harm
- They impact how guests and others experience our ministry.
- They are to guide us personally, not just institutionally.
We pray the values we put forth for our Crosspoint family and all who will engage with them will better serve to reflect the love of Christ to the people with whom we interact and to whom we minister.
This week, we will explore the value of Persistent Prayer along with spiritual and practical encouragement to become a persistent pray’er!
Apply: What values do you have as an individual? How do the play out in your life? If you haven’t thought through your personal values, perhaps this series will give you opportunity to do that!
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for giving us value by investing the life of your Son in us. Teach us to value what you value so every day of our lives we can show the world how valuable you are to us! AMEN.