Free in the Spirit
Neither Orville nor Wilbur Wright had a pilot’s license. Neither had gone to college. They were bicycle mechanics with a dream and the courage to try. On December 17, 1903, they took turns piloting their Wright Flyer on four separate flights. The longest lasted only a minute, but it changed our world forever.
Neither Peter nor John had a preaching license. Neither had gone to seminary. They were fishermen who, filled with the Spirit of Jesus, courageously proclaimed the good news. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The Wright brothers’ neighbors didn’t immediately appreciate their accomplishment. Their hometown newspaper didn’t believe their story, and said that even if true, the flights were too brief to be significant. It took several more years of flying and refining their planes before the public recognized what they had truly done.
The religious leaders didn’t like Peter and John, and they ordered them to stop telling others about Jesus. Peter said, No way. “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (v. 20).
You may not be on the approved list. Perhaps you’re scorned by those who are. No matter. If you have the Spirit of Jesus, you’re free to live boldly for Him!
Hope Beyond Consequences
Have you ever done something in anger you later regretted? When my son was wrestling with drug addiction, I said some harsh things in reaction to his choices. My anger only discouraged him more. But eventually he encountered believers who spoke life and hope to him, and in time he was set free.
Even someone as exemplary in faith as Moses did something he later regretted. When the people of Israel were in the desert and water was scarce, they complained bitterly. So God gave Moses and Aaron specific instructions: “Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water” (Numbers 20:8). But Moses reacted in anger, giving himself and Aaron credit for the miracle instead of God: “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then he disobeyed God directly, “raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff” (vv. 10–11).
Even though water flowed, there were tragic consequences. Neither Moses nor Aaron was allowed to enter the land God promised His people. But He was still merciful, allowing Moses to see it from afar (27:12).
As with Moses, God still mercifully meets us in the desert of our disobedience to God. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, He kindly offers us forgiveness and hope. No matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done, if we turn to Him, He’ll lead us into life.
Mimic Jesus
A “master of disguise” lives in the waters of Indonesia and in the Great Barrier Reef. The mimic octopus, like other octopuses, can change its skin pigment to blend in with its surroundings. This intelligent creature also changes its shape and “the way it moves and behaves” when threatened. In fact, the mimic octopus can impersonate fifteen other kinds of sea creatures, including the venomous lionfish and flatfish, and even deadly sea snakes. Though imperfect, these disguises provide time to escape other predators and may have kept the mimic octopus from being discovered until 1998.
Unlike the mimic octopus, believers in Jesus are meant to stand out in the world that surrounds us. We may feel threatened by those who disagree with us and become tempted to blend in so we won’t be recognized as believers in Jesus. The apostle Paul, however, urges us to offer our bodies as a “living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1), representing Jesus in every aspect of our lives.
Friends or family members may try to pressure us to conform to the “patterns of this world” (v. 2). But we can show who we serve by aligning our lives with what we say we believe as God’s children. When we obey the Scriptures and reflect His loving character, our lives can demonstrate that the rewards of obedience are always greater than any loss. How will you mimic Jesus today?
Our Refuge
A place where the buffalo roamed in the US. That’s truly what it was in the beginning. The Plains Indians followed bison there until settlers moved in with herds and crops. The land was later used as a chemical manufacturing site after Pearl Harbor, then even later for Cold War weapon demilitarization. But then one day a roost of bald eagles was discovered there, and soon the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge was born—a 15,000-acre expanse of prairie, wetland, and woodland habitat on the edges of the metropolis of Denver, Colorado. It is now one of the largest urban refuges, or sanctuaries, in the country—a safe, protected home for more than 300 species of animals, from black-footed ferrets to burrowing owls to bald eagles, and you guessed it: roaming buffalo.
The psalmist tells us that “God is our refuge” (62:8). Far greater than any earthly place of refuge, God is our true sanctuary, a safe, protected presence in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is our refuge in whom we can place our trust regardless of the literal or figurative weather—“at all times” (Psalm 62:8). And He is our sanctuary where we can boldly bring all our prayers and petitions, pouring out our hearts.
God is our refuge. That’s who He was in the beginning, who He is now, and who He always will be.
The Gospel in Unexpected Places
Recently, I found myself someplace I’d seen in movies and on TV more times that I could count: Hollywood, California. There, in the foothills of Los Angeles, those enormous white letters marched proudly across that famous hillside as I viewed them from my hotel window.
Then I noticed something else: down to the left was a prominent cross. I’d never seen that in a movie. And the moment I left my hotel room, some students from a local church began to share Jesus with me.
We might sometimes think of Hollywood as only the epicenter of worldliness, in utter contrast with God’s kingdom. Yet clearly Christ was at work there, catching me by surprise by His presence.
The Pharisees were consistently surprised by where Jesus turned up. He didn’t hang out with the people they expected. Instead, Mark 2:13–17 tells us He spent time with “tax collectors and sinners” (v. 15), people whose lives practically screamed “Unclean!” Yet there Jesus was, among those who needed Him most (v. 17).
More than 2,000 years later, Jesus continues to plant His message of hope and salvation in unexpected places, among the most unexpected of people. And He’s called and equipped us to be a part of that mission.
Heaping Coals on Enemies
Dan endured daily beatings from the same prison guard. He felt compelled by Jesus to love this man, so one morning, before the beating was about to begin, Dan said, “Sir, if I’m going to see you every day for the rest of my life, let’s become friends.” The guard said, “No sir. We can never be friends.” Dan insisted and reached out his hand.
The guard froze. He began to shake, then grabbed Dan’s hand and wouldn’t let go. Tears streamed down his face. He said, “Dan. My name is Rosoc. I would love to be your friend.” The guard didn’t beat Dan that day, or ever again.
Scripture tells us, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21–22). This doesn’t mean we’re to kill our enemies with kindness. The “coals” imagery may reflect an Egyptian ritual in which a guilty person showed his repentance by carrying a bowl of hot coals on his head. Similarly, our kindness may cause our enemies to become red in the face from embarrassment, which may lead them to repentance.
Who is your enemy? Who do you dislike? Dan discovered the kindness of Christ was strong enough to change any heart—his enemy’s and his own. We can too.
Easy Money
In the late 1700s, a young man discovered a mysterious depression on Nova Scotia’s Oak Island. Guessing that pirates—perhaps even Captain Kidd himself—had buried treasure there, he and a couple of companions started digging. They never found any treasure, but the rumor took on a life of its own. Over the centuries, others continued digging at the site—expending a great amount of time and expense. The hole is now more than 100 feet (30 meters) deep.
Such obsessions betray the emptiness in the human heart. A story in the Bible shows how one man’s behavior revealed just such a void in his heart. Gehazi had long been a reliable servant of the great prophet Elisha. But when Elisha declined the lavish gifts of a military commander whom God had healed of leprosy, Gehazi concocted a story to get some of the loot (2 Kings 5:22). When Gehazi returned home, he lied to the prophet (v. 25). But Elisha knew. He asked him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you?” (v. 26). In the end, Gehazi got what he wanted, but lost what was important (v. 27).
Jesus taught us not to pursue this world’s treasures and to instead “store up . . . treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20).
Beware of any shortcuts to your heart’s desires. Following Jesus is the way to fill the emptiness with something real.
True Religion
The summer after my sophomore year of college, a classmate died unexpectedly. I’d seen him just a few days prior and he looked fine. We and our classmates were young and in what we thought was the prime of our lives, having just become sisters and brothers after pledging our respective sorority and fraternity.
But what I remember most about my classmate’s death was witnessing my fraternity friends live out what James calls true religion. The men in his fraternity became like brothers of the sister of the deceased. They attended her wedding and traveled to her baby shower years after her brother’s death. One even gifted her a cell phone to contact him whenever she needed to call.
The “brothers” remind of what James calls “genuine religion” (James 1:27
And that’s what all of us who want to practice true and pure life in Jesus can do—“do what [Scripture] says” (v. 22), including caring for those in need (2:14–17). Our faith in Him prompts us to look after the vulnerable as we keep ourselves from the negative influences of the world as He helps us. After all, it’s the only true religion God accepts.
Live in Freedom
In Texas, where I grew up, there were festive parades and picnics in Black communities every June 19. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learned the heartbreaking significance of Juneteenth (a word combining “June” and “nineteenth”) celebrations. Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas learned that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation giving them their freedom—two-and-a-half years earlier. Enslaved people in Texas kept living in slavery because they didn’t know they had been freed.
It's possible to be free and yet live as slaves. In Galatians, Paul wrote about another kind of slavery: living life under the crushing demands of religious rules. In this pivotal verse, Paul encouraged his readers that “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves by burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Believers in Jesus had been set free from external regulations including what to eat and who to befriend. Many, however, still lived as if they were enslaved.
Unfortunately, we can do the same thing today. But the reality is that Jesus set us free from living in fear of man-made religious standards the moment we trusted in Him. Freedom has been proclaimed. Let’s live it out in His power.
