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Today, do not merely manage your mind. Drive your mind continually back to the One who made it and whose beauty alone can truly satisfy it. To love God with all your mind and strength, is to let your mind and heart be captivated by him.
Unlike false idols that rely on human devotion and service, our God is the self-sufficient Father and the giver of all—sharing life itself so that we may know, walk with, and love him.
When they see the humiliation and shrinking of the church, it can make Christians despair that they’re on the losing side. When they see the Lord seems to be defeated. And yet, the Day of Dagon’s Triumph was not only short-lived. It turned out to be a mirage.
“The next day, Dagon fell down before the Ark in deference to the Lord. And when he was put back, he fell down again. His head and hands cut off.”
You see, at first it had looked like the Lord had been conquered. In reality, he was the one doing the conquering. The Lord had entered Dagon territory and demanded his submission.
This new husband, Jesus, is not a demanding master standing over you with a checklist. He is a life-giving husband who took your ugliness, sin, and shame down into death to bury it forever, sharing with you his own life and perfect righteousness, making you beautiful in his sight and calling you his very own.
On that last day, all things will come together and demonstrate that nothing has the power to pry us out of the loving hands of Jesus. When all hurts are healed and all tears dried, we will know we have seen the worst of it, and yet we are safe and secure forever.
What were the Father, Son and Spirit doing “before” they created anything? They were single-mindedly absorbed in mutual affection.
The following message by Michael Reeves was given at the 2026 Puritan Conference.
When we read the word of God, we find it reads us. It pierces deep. It finds us, it discovers our innermost filth. It judges, and it saves, just as it judged Eglon and it saved the people.
The mutual knowing of Father, Son and Spirit is, to put it simply, the deepest truth of all. It is the foundational and all-encompassing intimacy. It is the affection of which all life is simply a joyful overflow.
The Christian life is defined by Jesus, centred on Jesus, and it even begins to look like Jesus, in all his loveliness and goodness. It is not your own life, but his life being worked out in you. It is this way from day one, and will be this way right to the day when your race has been won.
And it will never stop feeling like kneeling at the cross in worship and wonder.
I receive the abundant-life-giving coming of Jesus as I know and am known in my local church.
Local church matters because knowing and being known matter.
There is no distance Christ is unwilling to go. There is no job beneath him that he will not joyfully complete in love. And now he is risen in glory, with holes in his hands and standing as a Lamb who was slain (Rev. 5:6). This is what greatness looks like. This is what glory looks like. This is what true leadership looks like.
It is here, and only here where we find our everlasting comfort. Our everlasting beauty. Our everlasting life.
As we watch, and as we wait in the wilderness of our world today, may we too lift our voices to cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” For he who was faithful to come, will come again, just as he promised. And so we cry, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Here lies the secret of boldness. Not found in our own strength but in his steadfast love. This is the truth and promise that makes us bold, to take risks for Christ Jesus, to overcome insecurity, to fight temptation, to stand up for what is right, to wait patiently in the face of suffering, to love with our whole hearts. It is the assurance of his love for us in the present brokenness.
Every task is worship. Every place is holy ground. Every moment is life with him: when we lie down and when we wake. When we sing or when we grieve. When we work or when we play. When our love is warm and when it is cold.
The following devotional by Clive Bowsher is for Friends of Union. To learn more about becoming a Friend of Union, visit www.uniontheology.org/friends-of-union
For the next five days, join Michael Reeves in uncovering the beauty of what it means to stand with integrity as people of the gospel.
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