Colossians 3:2 calls me to set my mind on things above, not on earthly things. T. Austin-Sparks reminds us that believers drift when our inner gravity settles on what is passing. The early church kept a living sense of heaven’s call. That vision moved ordinary people to live from Jesus, not from the narrowing pull of this world.

I’ve never been comfortable with the phrase “dying to self.” It’s common in Christian circles, but when you look closely at Scripture, it doesn’t quite line up with what God has already done for us in Jesus. The Bible gives us a far richer and more liberating picture: we don’t keep dying to self. We recognize that the old man has already been crucified, and we deny the self-life (the flesh) as our source.

E. Stanley Jones reminds us that the mind of Jesus was one of complete self-surrender. Philippians 2:5-11 outlines the path of Jesus, who emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and became obedient to death on a cross. From that deepest place of renunciation, the Father exalted Him, giving Him the name above every name. Jones makes clear that when we take on the mind of Jesus, we find our truest self not by clinging to our own importance but by letting go. In losing ourselves, we discover who we were created to be.

T. Austin-Sparks draws our eyes to a breathtaking truth from Ephesians: Jesus was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, and we, by grace, have been raised up and seated with Him. This is not a distant promise but a present reality that the Holy Spirit longs to make alive in our hearts. It is one thing to read the words, but another to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened so that this reality becomes the lens through which we live. Sparks reminds us that this revelation is what frees and sustains us.

Ray Stedman takes us into Romans 1:18 to 20 and shows why life caves in when we push God to the edges. The trouble behind our troubles is not simply bad behavior. It is godlessness, living as if God is not present or active. From that root, hurtful choices grow. When we disregard God, we suppress truth, and when truth is pressed down, darkness spreads in our thinking and our living.

Bob Hoekstra draws our hearts today to the comfort David found in confessing God as his refuge. Life is often stormy. Sometimes it feels as if the floods of trouble are rising, and dangers are waiting around every corner. Like David, we long for shelter, a place where the chaos cannot touch us. Hoekstra reminds us that our refuge is not a place but a Person. God Himself is our hiding place, the One who surrounds us with songs of deliverance.

Numbers 16:9 is a tender reminder that God Himself has drawn us near. He has set us apart for relationship, not for rules that crush. The Levites were reminded that their nearness to God was the gift. They did not need to search elsewhere for satisfaction. This truth touches a struggle many know well: the impulse to turn to food for comfort when the soul aches.

Numbers 16 reminds us that God drew the Levites near, not to burden them, but to bless them with nearness and service. A. B. Simpson helps us see that true separation is not grim distance from the world, it is joyful closeness to God. He uses the picture of something kept clean though surrounded by grime, and says the issue is not the world itself, but the love of the world. That is where Jesus gently changes our desires.

Oswald Chambers challenges us with a piercing truth: the blessings of God were never meant to be clutched tightly for our own satisfaction. Using David’s story of refusing to drink the precious water brought by his men, Chambers points us to a life where gifts, friendships, love, and provision are meant to be poured back out to the Lord in gratitude and surrender. If we cling to them, they turn sour. If we release them, they become channels of living water flowing outward to others.

The line that steadies today is simple. The law is not of faith. Miles Stanford invites us to stand on grace as our everyday ground, not on rule keeping as our rule of life. He points out how easy it is to drift into religious systems that look impressive but quietly nudge us back to self effort. Stanford thanks the Lord for giving the Holy Spirit as our Guide in the present, so we are not dragged backward into yesterday’s patterns or pushed ahead into systems that belong to a future age.

God’s fatherly discipline is not payback. It is purposeful training. Today’s eManna reading draws that line with care, and I am grateful for Witness Lee’s clear voice here. Hebrews 12 says discipline rarely feels pleasant in the moment, yet afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. That is the Father’s aim. He is not dealing with us as criminals who must be penalized, but as beloved sons and daughters who are already His in Jesus.

God’s people sing because God speaks. Psalm 33 opens by inviting the upright to lift a fresh song with skill and joy. This is not noise or hype, it is a fitting response to a God whose word is right and whose works are faithful. Praise is the overflow of trust in a Voice that never errs.

The Grace and Truth Study Bible shows Hosea drawing a clear line between the family story of Jacob and the national story of Israel. Jacob’s early years were marked by grasping and deceit. In Hosea’s day, the northern kingdom repeated that pattern with wind-chasing treaties and double talk, reaching for safety in Assyria and Egypt while standing in covenant with God. Judah also walked out of step. The point is not to shame the family history, but to expose a pattern that has reappeared among God’s people.

Abraham travels to Gerar and repeats an old fear pattern, calling Sarah his sister. The king, Abimelek, takes Sarah, and the promise of Isaac seems to stand on a cliff’s edge. Yet the Lord steps in. He speaks to Abimelek in a dream, halts any union, and makes clear that Sarah belongs to Abraham. The tension sits right before Isaac’s birth, so we are meant to see how closely God watches over His word and safeguards the line of promise.

E. Stanley Jones reflects on Paul’s words from Philippians 2:1-2, showing us that life in Jesus is not static or dry but overflowing with encouragement, love, and shared participation in the Spirit. To be in Him means that we are never left to our own fading resources. Instead, we are carried along by His life within us, much like electricity flowing through a generator. This is what Jones calls “the stimulus of Christ.”

This morning’s devotional from Nick Harrison opens with Romans 1:18-20, reminding us that the reality of God is written across creation itself. The world around us bears testimony to His eternal power and divine nature, leaving humanity without excuse. Yet, as Blaise Pascal so beautifully expressed, the God of Christians is not a distant mathematician or a cosmic watchmaker. He is not merely a God of order and elements. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who fills hearts with love, joy, and consolation.

T. Austin-Sparks draws us into Paul’s words in Ephesians, where he calls himself “the prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Sparks helps us see that imprisonment was not a setback but a gateway. God often uses what looks like limitation to release something much greater. Paul’s prison cell became the pulpit from which letters flowed that still enrich us nineteen centuries later. What seemed small and confining in human eyes turned out to be vast in eternal value.

Paul says the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Ray Stedman slows us down to see why this matters in real life. Rome admired power. So do we. Yet the might that builds roads and empires cannot change a heart. The gospel does what no human power can do. It brings people into a brand-new standing with God because of Jesus.

Bob Hoekstra points us to the life of David, who again and again confessed the Lord as his strength. In a world where every step seems to demand more than we can give, David reminds us that our sufficiency is not found within ourselves but in God Himself. Whether facing the daily tasks of life, confronting hidden traps of the enemy, or engaging in outright battles, David’s testimony was simple and clear: the Lord is my strength.

Zechariah 4:10 reminds us that the Lord delights in the day of small things. A. B. Simpson picks up that thread and shows how quiet beginnings often carry heaven’s largest outcomes. He likens the hidden life of Jesus in Bethlehem to the hidden life of Jesus in us. What looks little is not lesser. It is the seed of a kingdom that grows from within.