Rise Daily: April 5

Rise Daily: April 5

THIS WEEK’S THEME & PASSAGE

Counter-Culture for the Common Good – Matthew 5:11-16

This week’s sermon from the series “Where We are Going: The City and the Mission“

 

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THIS WEEK’S MEMORY VERSE

Memorizing scripture is a way to keep God’s word close to our hearts. Each week we will select one verse of scripture to remember as a community.

Matthew 5:14

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

 

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THE WORD

Each day’s devotion will focus on one part of the week’s passage.

Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

 

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MEDITATION ON THE WORD

In our busyness and distraction, it is easy to skim through our reading rather than taking it in. Yet we believe this is the inspired word of God. Take a moment to pause, thank God for the scriptures and ask him to speak to you through them today.

Even if a person is not familiar with the Bible, colloquially, calling a person “the salt of the earth” remains a solid compliment. He or she is being lauded for decency, integrity, dependability.

Jesus, however, wasn’t thinking only in behavioral terms when he called his followers the salt of the earth. Each person who truly belongs to him is a vehicle of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within. While the presence of the Spirit changes those in whom he lives, his power also is carried to all the corners of need where the believer travels. If you volunteer to help those in need, or teach children or immigrants, or comfort the sick, your own efforts are joined with those of the Spirit to do God’s work in the world.

Believers need not think of themselves as gifted, or powerful or influential in and of themselves. Your “saltiness” and your value to your culture comes from the indwelling life of the Holy Spirit, as you are Christ’s body in the world.

Salt does not need to be applied in great quantities for it to do its work of preserving and flavoring food, still less of preventing dehydration. A little goes a long way. And most often when a person is called “the salt of the earth,” it is done with the recognition that this is a rare quality. It always has been.

 

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THIS WEEK’S RISE REFLECTION

Since Redeemer’s earliest days, God has worked through the deep, passionate, urgent prayers offered up by people across the country and around the world on our behalf. Today, we are in need of your prayer support like never before. We cannot accomplish a plan of long-term gospel renewal in our city without thousands of people, inside and outside of Redeemer. We need you. Will you join us to pray for this movement and your role in it? Sign up here to join thousands of our friends for a special day of unified prayer on Saturday, April 16.

 

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TODAY’S PRAYER

For your Heart: Pray that you may live a life of transparency, integrity, love, joy, self-control–with all the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life, blessing those who encounter you.

For your Church: Pray that collectively we would seek to be the “salt of the earth” by cultivating a counter-cultural community of believers that live in peace, love, and gospel-filled unity.

For our City: Pray that Christians all over our city would live lives of such service, humility and attractiveness that even those who may not share our beliefs would be blessed by our presence.