Team Daily Bible Reading and Commentary Thoughts for April 2024
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April 26, 2024
Bible Reading
Ephesians 2:8-10
James 2:18
Commentary Thoughts
Sometimes we mix up the roles of salvation and faith, so I want to set the record straight. When you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior by placing your faith in Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins, you are given eternal life.
But while you trust Christ through faith, you are now supposed to live your life by faith. These are two very different things. Trusting Christ for salvation is akin to receiving a gift. Living by faith is doing a work.
That’s why James says faith without works is dead (James 2:26).
He isn’t talking about getting to heaven; he’s talking about getting heaven down into you.
Accepting Christ as your Savior takes you to heaven; living by faith brings heaven’s power and God’s experiential presence and authority to you on earth.
It allows you to see God enter history by showing up in your circumstances. When you live by faith, God brings the supernatural to bear in the midst of the natural situations of your existence on earth.0 -
April 27, 2024
Bible Reading
Mark 10:27
Jeremiah 32:27
Commentary Thoughts
Unfortunately, people often confuse faith and works. As a result, many Christians don’t live by faith, which has the accompaniment of works. Rather, they live by sight while calling it faith.
They say they trust God. They wait on Him for every move. They resign themselves to living without movement or momentum, expecting God to do everything for them. Yet while God did everything for you and me through the gift of salvation, He expects us to do the work of faith—made manifest by obedience to Him throughout our lives.
Faith is so powerful that it can flip the natural order of things.
In Hebrews 11:35 we read that “women received back their dead by resurrection.” This is referring to those who were brought back to life by Elijah and Elisha.
Yet, you and I will never get to see God flip the order of things in our lives if we continue to view life through the lens of this world’s perspective.
Living by faith means acting before you see the result you desire. When you do, you get to experience God reversing things in your life that are humanly impossible to reverse.
How have you seen God “flip” the natural order of things through faith?0 -
April 28, 2024
Bible Reading
Hebrews 11:39-40
1 Corinthians 3: 11-14
Commentary Thoughts
Sometimes living by faith will make you come across as different. You may even appear weird to other people, just as Noah did.
But as Hebrews 11:38 says, those who live by faith are the men and women of whom “the world was not worthy.”
What makes the world not worthy of certain people?
It’s when they live so high in the spiritual realm that those around them in the earthly realm often can’t understand what they’re doing or why.
The world thinks they’re odd. They think they’ve lost their minds. They call them fanatics. Freaks. Or any other name people can come up with.
But the author of Hebrews reminds us the world, consisting of those who live according to the precepts of worldliness, is not worthy of those who truly live by faith. It’s not worthy of those who know how to function from a higher vantage point.
Those who live with an eternal perspective outwit, outplay and outlast those who don’t. That doesn’t mean they will always get their rewards while on earth, but in eternity, they will be richly rewarded.
Faith gives us a future to look forward to.
What’s the best way to respond to people who
don’t understand how your faith affects your life?0 -
April 29, 2024
Bible Reading
Mark 11:22
Mark 11:12-14
Commentary Thoughts
Spiritual authority is rooted in the knowledge of God.
Jesus’s specific response to Peter’s surprise at the withered fig tree was a command to have faith in God:
"And Jesus answered saying to them, 'Have faith in God.'"(Mark 11:22).
In other words, the power that Peter observed in the withering of the tree flowed from a single power source: God. Authority simply means the right to use an already existing power, but the key is to know how to access that power source.
Throughout His life, Jesus had modeled to the disciples how His own power and authority flowed out of His intimate relationship with God as His Father.
If the disciples were to exercise the authority to move mountains, they must first know the God who has the power to move the mountains.
A believer’s lack of spiritual authority can often originate from a lack of intimacy with the Source of all authority.
Are you struggling to scale an insurmountable obstacle in your life without first going to the Source of all power and authority?0 -
April 30, 2024
Bible Reading
Mark 11:24
2 Peter 1:3
Commentary Thoughts
Spiritual authority is activated by the believer’s response of faith.
Faith can be defined as not only the content of what we believe, but the action taken, based upon who God reveals Himself to be. As we come to know God more intimately through prayer and study of Scripture, we can confidently respond in faith to whatever spiritual struggles, or mountains, we face.
Faith is the word for the action of exercising spiritual authority. If we are to pray with spiritual authority, asking for all things and believing that we have received them (Mark 11:24), we must first appropriate in faith what God has already done.
When speaking to unbelievers, we will often encourage them to come to faith by assuring them that God has already paid the price for their sins and has accomplished all that is needed to be reconciled to Him. What we often forget is that this is no less true for the believer: God has already given us all that we need for every spiritual struggle we may face (2 Peter 1:3).
As you plunge deeper into an intimate relationship with God, will you act on the truth that He reveals to you? Will you come to trust God more, so that you are emboldened to respond in obedience to what He calls you to do?0
