Author: Danny Panter

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 18:1-4 (day six)  

Jesus wasn’t using children as a mere object lesson. No, I think he really enjoyed being with them; listening to them, playing with them, answering their often whimsical but sincere questions. There is an authenticity to children that is rare among the aged, beginning as early as the tween years. Younger kids, most often, are what you see is what you get. They have no pretense or guile; they embody a true freedom to be themselves.

This was a significant contrast with the whitewashed tombs of many of the religious leaders of the day. All pretty on the outside, but full of dried up bones. Not so sure if Jesus enjoyed spending too much time with the likes of them.

At the end of the day, humility is the ability to be authentic; a keen self-awareness that doesn’t mind being fully seen and known…and redeemed.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 19:1-10 (day six) 

There is a child-likeness to Zacchaeus’ faith. With little concern about those around him, he hustles himself up into a tree to get the best view of Jesus. He didn’t want to miss this; he had heard the stories after all. One of his disciples was a tax collector.

It is this kind of faith that Jesus praises in the children who came to seek his blessing in chapter 18 (a foreshadowing of Zacchaeus). Child-like faith is persistently eager, rambunctious even or single-minded in its efforts to have the best view. 

It is willing to climb if it has to. Today ask the Lord to renew a childlike faith in you.

Re:Verse passage – John 13:3-17 (day six)

[Jesus] got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, ⁵ and poured water into a basin.  John 13:4

If you want to become great, then become a servant to all.-Jesus, Matthew 20:26.

Jesus took the form of a servant. He took off his Rabi/teacher garb, then put on what a servant would normally wear in order to wash people’s feet. I wonder if that was hard for Jesus to condescend to that position, to lower himself? I find myself, often enough, out of some sense of self-importance trying to hold onto personal significance (greatness), not give it up.  That’s my knee jerk, self-absorbed reaction. It is as if I might lose something of myself, some semblance of status or position, or become less, if I were to take the position of a servant.

The irony is Jesus did not dwindle into becoming a servant, he became (in the eyes of his disciples) great. Even in my own personal experience, the people I admire most are those who serve others, when they could easily demand service from others.

How about you? Will you be great today? Greatness does not cling to privilege or power or status, greatness gives it up in order to serve others.

Re:Verse passage – 2 Corinthians 9:6-12 (day six)

There is no way around this, the kingdom minded person is a generous giver. They are giving because there is always a good kingdom return on their investment; it bears lots of fruit, and that makes them glad. And by giving I mean money. That’s what Paul means when writing to the Corinthian church.

Our church family doesn’t beat the national average, roughly 20 percent of our church family has a rhythm of giving a tithe (the Old Testament command to give 10 percent of your first fruits to the temple). So out of, say, 500 possible unique givers at FBCSA, only 100 actually give regularly. Consider the harvest of those 100 faithful, cheerful givers: a dedicated and gifted ministerial staff, beautiful new and historic facilities, planted churches, ongoing ministry and missions, mobilizing thousands to the international mission field, supporting career missionaries through cooperative giving, supplying resources to the poor in our city, beautiful creative arts-the harvest is plentiful! BUT imagine if 50 percent gave cheerfully and expectantly, rather than just 20. 70 percent?

What if generous givers (not defined by quantity, but the quality of the giving) weren’t the minority in our church family? What if we transcended the national average? What if we all really believed Jesus when his said, “It is more blessed to give, than to receive.” Can you imagine the harvest of that kind of generosity?

Maybe that is why so many of us struggle with giving generously. We rarely connect our giving to the harvest. We disconnect the giving from the yield. So we either give because that is what we just do, or we don’t at all. Paul says, “be a giver, and watch what God will do with your generosity.”

Do you believe Jesus and Paul? Out of what he has given you, do you give cheerfully and consistently? Is there a rhythm of Gospel generosity in your life?

Re:Verse passage – Acts 2:42-47 (day six)

…having favor with all the people. Acts 2:47

The church, in it is earliest days, experienced favor with all the people. Immediately there was a visibility to their faith and practice that was unavoidable; they gathered in the temple to talk about Jesus among themselves and with others in the temple courts. People from all walks of life couldn’t help but see the beauty in their convictions about Jesus, their unity of mind, and the fruit it produced. It was contagious.

The church experienced favor like this,… until it didn’t. Favor would soon be replaced with direct opposition. Opposition arose when the faith and practice of new Jewish Christians threatened the power and influence of the status quo.

And the new growing church (like wild fire) did not cower, but rose in response, not with worldly force, returning efforts in kind, but with truth put on full display with Holy Spirit led grace and extraordinary sacrificial love,…like Jesus.

Re:Verse passage – 2 Timothy 3:14-17(day six)

The Bible is not a rudder. A rudder is a marvelous tool that allows a captain to steer the vessel the direction he desires. It has no authority or command of its own.

There are many churches today that use the Bible like a rudder, twisting and turning it the direction they want to go. In their hands the Bible does not correct, teach, or guide; it only functions as a tool for blind guides.

The Bible is not a Rudder, it is rather the Captain’s commands. The Captain’s commands carry weight, authority, wisdom, and knowledge that steers the ship the direction it MUST go, simply because they come from the the Captain. Everyone on the vessel listens and obeys the Captain’s commands, and if they don’t the Captain’s own words corrects them.

That has been the legacy of the Bible in the First Baptist family. And I am thankful.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 8:15-17, Ephesians 5:22-32 (day six)

“Father, may they be one, as we are one…”-Jesus, John 17:21

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul introduced the human body as a metaphor for the church. In Romans 8 and Ephesians 5, although indirectly, Paul describes the church as a family, and as a bride respectively. These metaphors suggest that God perceives his church not only as a group of individuals, but as one.  This requires we adjust our own perspective, learning to think about our own identity in the same way God does. We are so enamored with the self (reinforced by our culture with a steady gushing current of self-centering, self-exalting ideologies), that it is really challenging to see our interconnectedness, and what that means as the church.

That’s why we encourage you to really consider what it means to be Better Together. This is not just a noble catchphrase, but describes the core of our identity that we have together in Jesus. If we miss this; if we don’t pursue it, then we won’t fully experience the kind of fruitfulness and good work Jesus prayed for.

Re:Verse passage – 1 Corinthians 12:12-27  (day six)

One of the biggest hangups in the life of the Corinthian church was an inaccurate picture of what it meant to be a spiritual person. Coming out of a culture of pagan worship where ecstatic personal experiences (like speaking in tongues) where elevated, it was no surprise that this became a superior value in their church. For them spirituality had little to do with daily Holy Spirit-led living, connecting with others, or fulfilling God’s mission, but rather, regularly experiencing the more charismatic gifts.

Sound familiar? There is a strong temptation in contemporary Christian church culture (and has been for some time) to define spirituality in similar ways.  If we are not mindful, our “spiritual” lives can be totally disconnected from daily life, and yet we can still consider ourselves spiritual because we love singing those hymns, or we are moved to raise our hands when the band plays the right song.

Paul says, this ought not be so. True spirituality is when the Holy Spirit guides us through all of life; this can take shape with or without heightened “spiritual” experiences.