Daily Readings at Southeast

The mission for every follower of Christ is to be with Jesus and become like Him—for the sake of the world. That all starts in one place: God’s Word. To be with Jesus, We have to first spend time with Him. God wants us to know Him—not just know about Him—and studying Scripture is one foundational way we grow in our relationship with Him. Join us daily in God's Word with passages from the Old and New Testaments, and take time to reflect with the P.R.A.Y. method.  We would like to thank The Bridge Church for providing this plan. For more information, please visit:   https://bridge.tv   DAY 1 The mission of every Christian is to be with Jesus and become like Him—for the sake of the world. That all starts in one place: God’s Word. To be with Jesus, we have to first spend time with Him. God wants us to know Him—not just know about Him—and studying Scripture is one foundational way we grow in our relationship with Him.  And so, we embark on Abide—a year-long Bible reading ...

 DAY 5: THE CHURCH COMMUNITY BRINGS REFRESHING We are refreshed in the community of God! I have loved Church online, to go to Church without having to get out of my pajamas has been amazing! And as an introvert, to not have the pressure of walking into Church or the stress of who to talk to in the 60-second greeting – sheer bliss!! But as I was reading my Bible, I was reminded that it is in the community of the Church that we are refreshed. Titus was refreshed when he went to the Corinthian church and we are refreshed by having others around us! Yes, even us introverts! There is something about hearing the chatter and noise of people who love Jesus as you do, who are living their life trying to walk out their Christianity just like you are. I love sharing with others about the Bible verses that I am reading, having a common vision to see God’s house and Church expand. To have that like-minded conversation with people is what Paul is saying here that refreshed Titus.  I watched...

 DAY 4: QUIET TIMES BRINGS REFRESHING This is such a great Psalm and probably one of the most well-known! The imagery of lying down in green pastures, beside quiet waters and allowing God to refresh your soul, seems a long way away from what we have been experiencing over the last couple of months. Homeschooling, work hours have become any day at any time, constantly with family. But your soul is crying out for God’s refreshing and you don’t have to break restrictions to get it. Nothing that this world can provide can bring the same refreshing than spending time with God, in quiet beautiful moments where you are hanging out with him can. When was the last time that you laid down, were quiet and allowed the refreshing of the presence of God to wash over you? Probably awhile right. Well now is the time!  You could go to a park, take a picnic rug, and just lie down. Or go for a walk, go into your bedroom, wherever you can get away for just a moment and refresh with God. When the ...

 DAY 3: BEING GENEROUS BRINGS REFRESHING How amazing do you feel when you do something for someone else? In a time where we have been in lockdown, hoarding toilet paper & meat (if you are in Australia!), fighting in shopping centers over food, basically looking after number one! It felt like our societies went into ‘self-protection mode’ and we focused on ourselves and getting our family through the pandemic. Everyone else could fend for themselves. But now is the time to shift that! If you are feeling a bit stale, a bit lost in self-protection mode, maybe it’s time to refresh others. It can be as simple as sending someone a gift, to Zoom with someone and take care of their needs or if you are allowed in your country, visit someone. And the Bible promises that as you re-activate that generous spirit by refreshing other’s, you will be refreshed yourself. See a generous spirit is abundant, a generous spirit takes the refreshing that God gives them and out of the abundance and ove...

  DAY 2: THE WORD BRINGS REFRESHING When you think about refreshing, reading your Bible might be a little way down on the list. But it really is a great way to be refreshed! It washes the truth over you, it revives your soul. I imagine reading my Bible like standing under a waterfall, it heals my wounds, cleans all of the muck of the world off, the anxiety, the fear of the reports that we are hearing. As I read my Bible, it washes me with truth and refreshes me. The definition of ‘refresh’ is to give new strength or energy, to reinvigorate. And that is what my Bible time does for me, it gives me new strength, it equips me for what I am about to face. A friend recently reminded me about the power of reading your Bible in the morning. She said it was like eating her ‘Weet Bix in the morning, it gives you the energy to get through the day’.  How great is that, as you read your Bible in the morning, it refreshes your Spirit, and gives you the wisdom and energy to get through your ...

 ‘Refresh’ is a word that brings a sense of renewal and something we all need, especially now. It's time to be refreshed in God. To refresh ourselves in the Word of God, washing off all of the muck and dirt ready for a new start. So, jump in with us as we spend the next five days looking at the topic of ‘refreshing’ in the Word of God.  We would like to thank Trash Your Bible for providing this plan. For more information, please visit:  http://trashyourbible.com DAY 1: REST BRINGS REFRESHING In times of isolation our lives have melted together, time frames, structured days are now one big blurry mess. But it’s time to have a new start, restore the time of rest. Dedicating time with God, like the Sabbath or your prayer and Word time in the morning, is essential in your health and productivity. It is really important to take time out to refresh; it sets the rest of the day or week on a good foundation! Abraham Lincoln said: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will s...

  EYES UP   When you look at the world around you, there seems to be a tendency to get caught up in the horizontal — what this influencer did, what that leader said, what new product was created, what new information was released. The problem with the horizontal is that it’s an endless road of comparison and compromise. God calls us as followers of Jesus to keep our eyes  up . In a nutshell, worship is getting our eyes up off of ourselves and our circumstances, and onto Jesus, the Son of God. When this happens, the things of the world seem to fade away in the greatest way possible. When Jesus was born, people came from far away to catch a glimpse of God — a glimpse of glory. The light of the world (John 8:12) was breaking into really dark and sinful humanity. Jesus came to give the blind a sight, unlike anything they had seen before.  The good news for us today is that we don’t have to go anywhere to “find” God. He finds us and invites us to look up and be changed by...

  MEETING PLACE Can you think back to your first meeting? Maybe it was the first week on a new job, a school project, or perhaps a family meeting. The most successful meetings are where there is a clear vision from the meeting leader and full engagement from the people attending. No one ever wants to be  that  person called on but doesn’t know what’s going on because they were catching up on social media, daydreaming of what they’re going to eat for lunch, or just taking a good ole selfie. In the Old Testament, the only place to “meet” with God was in the Holy of Holies. This was a room so sacred that only one person could enter once a year. The priest would enter into the Holy of Holies to meet with God and atone for the sins of the people. Sacrifices were made, and blood was shed to please their God (Leviticus 16). Everything changed when Jesus entered the scene. When God came to earth in the form of a baby, there was a collision of perfect love and wretched sin. He kne...

 To most, Jesus was just a baby...but there was more than meets the eye when it came to this baby. Our Christmas song, "More Than Meets the Eye," walks people through the story of Jesus being born into our dark world. We want to invite you to worship Jesus for who He was and still is today by going through this devotional and listening to our song.  We would like to thank Marketing with Wisdom, Inc. for providing this plan. For more information, please visit:  https://foothillscollective.com/ THERE'S MORE Let's be honest — we're human, and at the core of who we are as humans, there seems to regularly be a desire and a longing for "more." By the world's standard, this could mean more money, more fame, more followers, more comfort, more success, you name it. We find, though, that an earthly view of "more" leads to an empty sense of satisfaction.  You know, when Jesus was born in an obscure village in Judea, the little town of Bethlehem, Mary ...

 Peace Guaranteed! Read:  John 16:32-33 Imagine someone you love was in some sort of competition. Any competition will work, and it is the final leg. It could be a baking competition, a sporting competition, a chess tournament, a marathon, or a singing competition. It’s nerve racking, isn’t it? You are cheering for them enthusiastically. And then it happens. A voice crack, the bowl of mixed ingredients hits the floor, the runner falls, a bad move is made. It is not over, but it kind of feels like it. How will they possibly overcome this trial, this mistake, this hardship? But what if you knew how it ended before the competition began? What if you knew your loved one would win? The experience of watching would become completely different. In a sense, you would have peace. You would still have to watch your loved one experience pain and loss, but you would know that they came out the other side victorious. This is what Jesus is proclaiming to us in this Scripture. As we have stu...

 Peace with God Read:  Romans 5:1-11 There was a TV show that I watched when I was young called, “Wait till your father gets home!” It originally aired from 1972-1974. The premise was simple, the mother would get fed up with the kids and threaten that when their father got home they would receive their due punishment. I wouldn’t recommend it as a parenting technique, but you get the idea. Whether or not actual reprisals were imminent, the threat of their father’s wrath was meant to scare the kids straight. For a variety of reasons, when I was young in my faith in Jesus I wrongly believed that Jesus was my protection from an angry God in Heaven. My belief in Jesus didn’t change God’s wrath and anger at my sin, but Jesus acted as my protection from his wrath. It was if I was under a spiritual umbrella that Jesus was holding where God’s wrath couldn’t get to me. I was afraid of when my father in Heaven “got home” so to speak. God, in His marvelous grace, opened my eyes to Romans ...

 A Story of Peace Read:  Luke 2:11-14 A real danger in any relationship is to take it for granted, to forget the love you had at first. We see this caution to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:4 warning that they had lost their first love in Jesus. One of my favourite things to do is to recount how I met my wife and our whole courtship and dating relationship. Our kids get a kick out of the ways we tell it, consistently differing on certain parts for dramatic or humorous effect, but it is always encouraging to remember how our liking first turned to love, and then to see how far we have come together. This is what the story of Jesus’ coming needs to do in our hearts. It needs to be our favourite thing to recount. These verses are an amazing part of the beginning of the greatest story ever told. What a beautiful, kind, awe-inspiring way for God to announce the Saviour of the world! The fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy announced, and a multitude of angels praising God. And t...

 Defining Peace Read:   John 14:27 I love the word peace because, by God’s grace, I am increasingly defining peace through the lens of Scripture. In our world peace is most often associated with an absence of conflict, or a kind of false relational harmony that is not built upon any substantive morality. It can also mean freedom from emotional disturbance. The vast majority of humans crave peace. God has put eternity in our hearts and we are trying to reconcile the lack of peace we often feel in this world with the vastness, the awesome beauty, and the power of creation. How is it we can’t find peace?  We are also struggling against what the Bible calls our flesh. Our flesh is our desire to rule over ourselves and others. It doesn’t go well, does it? We seek control and power and yet we see how the more control and power we or others have the more we fail to wield it in a way that brings peace.  The title we see in Isaiah, Prince of Peace, is elaborated for us in thi...