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Date Posted: 13:03:31 05/10/22 Tue
Author: c
Subject: Supplementary teaching 5/2022

Our Daily Bread 10/19/21


When to sacrifice


In February 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis was just beginning, a newspaper column's concerns struck me. Would we willingly self-isolate, she wondered, changing our work, travel, and shopping habits so other's wouldn't get sick?...

It can be hard to consider other's needs while we're anxious about our own. Thankfully, we're not left with willpower alone to meet the need. We can ask the Holy Spirit to give us love to replace our indifference, joy to counter sadness, peace to replace our anxiety, forbearance (patience) to push out our impulsiveness, kindness to care about others, goodness to see to their needs, faithfulness to keep our promises, gentleness instead of harshness, and self-control to lift us beyond self-centeredness (Galatians 5:22-23). While we won't be perfect at all of this, we're called to seek the Spirit's gifts of virtue regularly (Ephesians 5:18).

Author Richard Foster once described holiness as the ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. And such holiness is needed every day, not just in a pandemic. Do we have the capacity to make sacrifices for the sake of others? Holy Spirit, fill us with the power to do what needs to be done.

Sheridan Voysey

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Our Daily Bread 10/27/21

A purpose in suffering

"So what you're saying is, it may not be my fault." The woman's words took me by surprise. Having been a guest speaker at her church, we were now discussing what I'd shared that morning. "I have chronic illness," she explained, "and I have prayed, fasted, confessed my sins, and done everything else I was told to do to be healed. But I'm sick, so I thought I was to blame."

I felt sad at the woman's confession. Having been given a spiritual "formula" to fix her problem, she had blamed herself when the formula hadn't worked. Even worse, this formulaic approach to suffering was disproved generations ago.

Simply put, this old formula says that if you're suffering, you must have sinned. When Job tragically lost his livestock, children, and health, his friends used the formula on him....

Suffering is a part of living in a fallen world. Like Job, it can happen for reasons we may never know. But God has a purpose for you that goes beyond the pain you endure. Don't get discouraged by falling for simplistic formulas.

Sheridan Voysey

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