Live Free with Josh Howerton - Blessings Upon Blessings | Ep. 26 | Monday March 13, 2023

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

The desire to bless those around you doesn’t always come naturally. Sometimes, it takes a significant amount of extra effort! Pastor Mike is kicking off this week with an episode about asking the Holy Spirit to empower you to bless all people, even when it’s hard. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. so glad you've joined us today. My name is Mike Bro and get the privilege of hanging with you just for a few minutes each day as we unpack some truth from God's Word and just trying to learn together what it means to walk with him and how to reflect his love to a watching world. And what we're

doing is working through Romans chapter 12 in the New Testament of the Bible. We're just kind of taking a verse of the time reflecting on that verse throughout the day. We're just humbly asking God, Father, that verse right there, may that be true of me today. And we're all the way down now to verse number 14. If you're just joining us for the first time, you can go back and catch up. I urge you to do that. But today we land on this challenging verse.

Verse 14. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Anybody else just want to move on in the next verse? Because none of us naturally want to do that. Have you ever heard the term agape love? It's a Greek word agape love. My dad taught me a pape love.

Somebody pops you. You a pape them right back, right? So to bless those who persecute you, that's just not a natural reaction. That's why we need the supernatural power of God's spirit working in us. Because it's not easy to bless those who disagree. It's not easy to bless those people who say mean stuff about us and post-negative stuff and label us and ridicule us or persecute us, is it? But by the way, you think this verse jumped off the page at us when we read it?

this was very real to the original audience that Paul was writing to. The original readers of this letter to the Romans knew very well that at any time they might become a torch for one of Nero's garden parties. Their entire family might become a snack for a hungry lion, all because of their faith in Jesus Christ. And Paul here definitely has an opportunity to say, you know what, you need to stand up and fight for your rights. We just got to find a way to get Nero out of it.

power. But instead he writes, bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Man, that is so different. But we are. You know, since God could see all the way into 2003, he in this verse that was written in the first century, I think is speaking into our current council culture saying, listen, you just just can't lash out with venom at other people. And then have Jesus follower in your social media profile. Last year, I read a book by John Mark Comer, a man. It's called Book Live No Lies. I highlight it Circle, underline a ton in that book. And here's one of the ones I highlight it in circle. He writes, a growing number of Christians are more loyal to their ideology or political

party than the art of Jesus and his teachings. That takes us in a territory outside the kingdom of God and demagnitizes our moral compass, pointing us a direction that does not lead to life or peace. Followers of Jesus need to come back to the reality that baptism is their primary pledge of allegiance. Contempt has zero place in the heart of those who claim to apprentice under Jesus, and the litmus test of our faith is the degree to which we love our enemy. Man, that's challenging. But what do you say since we apprentice under Jesus and we're striving to be different

that we love our enemies today that we bless those who might try to make life difficult those who exclude us, make fun of us, or ridicule us. Let's just live our lives free today from contempt and see other people through the eyes of Jesus. Man, I'm praying for you as you do that today. See you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today.

For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live online live. weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.com.combe.com slash daily drive.