Getting Ready For The Week | Daily Rhythms - Serve Week 2
Getting Ready For The Week | Daily Rhythms - Serve Week 2
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Reading For Sunday | Acts 2:42-47 | John 13:33-35
This week in our services we take a pause in our Devoted series to reflect on the current events of the last several weeks. In a season that seems beset by division and darkness, Pastor Marcus encouraged us not to grow weary or defeated but to look to our true source of hope. The natural response when faced with suffering and evil is to succumb to a deep spiritual sickness, one that leads us to isolation and quarreling. Marcus challenged us to instead call upon the power of God, to seek his healing and restoration for our own brokenness and the brokenness of our world. Through illustrations and wisdom from Mark 9, he reveals how prayer and fasting—not arguing—are our supernatural weapons against spiritual darkness.
We invite you to consider taking these bold steps and join us on Fridays through the end of this year in a time of fasting and prayer for revival.
To view Pastor Marcus’ message from this week, please use this LINK. We welcome the opportunity to pray with you over these or any burden you may be carrying. To request prayer, please use this LINK.
We invite you to consider taking these bold steps and join us on Fridays through the end of this year in a time of fasting and prayer for revival.
To view Pastor Marcus’ message from this week, please use this LINK. We welcome the opportunity to pray with you over these or any burden you may be carrying. To request prayer, please use this LINK.
Devoted | Serve
As we prepare for our second week focusing on the rhythm of serving one another within the church community, we will begin the week where we ended last week shining a spotlight on Jesus as he lives out the remaining 2 spiritual temperaments, service and worship.
Our hope is that as you prayerfully and imaginatively explore how Jesus embodied these 7 spiritual temperaments, you will notice which resonate most with you as well as which ones seem to feel outside your comfort zone. You can think of the natural temperament as your downstream tendency while the more ‘unnatural’ temperaments can be referred to as your upstream tendencies. Downstream tendencies will be used most often as you make an effort to serve others. While upstream tendencies don’t come as naturally, we would all benefit from a willingness to serve in ways that are not natural to us when the circumstances call for it.
In the reading for today to set up the week ahead, Jesus is spending his last precious hours with his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion. He leaves them with a new command, love one another just as he had loved them. This remains the defining characteristic of all followers of Jesus to this day. How would you have felt if you were in that upper room receiving this new command from Jesus? If you think the bar was being set REALLY HIGH, you would absolutely be correct. Loving to the extent that Jesus loved is quite the task, and his first disciples probably felt the impossibility of that task because they were not equipped for the task…yet.
Fast forward to Acts 2 as the church begins to be established. Jesus followers were, in fact, loving in extravagant and sacrificial ways much like Jesus. What changed? The believers had become empowered and indwelt with God’s Spirit who ignited in them gifts and talents which allowed the church to become a force to be reckoned with, and the world has never been the same. Paul writes in Romans 8:11, “if the same Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
You, too, have been empowered and charged to love others in the manner of Jesus. If you haven’t yet taken a spiritual gifts inventory, check out the link in the resources below. As you become comfortable with serving from the various spiritual temperaments, begin to consider what sort of rhythm or environment of service might bring life to your soul. Perhaps you might consider adding a statement or two to your Rule of Life regarding spiritual practice of serving others.
Our hope is that as you prayerfully and imaginatively explore how Jesus embodied these 7 spiritual temperaments, you will notice which resonate most with you as well as which ones seem to feel outside your comfort zone. You can think of the natural temperament as your downstream tendency while the more ‘unnatural’ temperaments can be referred to as your upstream tendencies. Downstream tendencies will be used most often as you make an effort to serve others. While upstream tendencies don’t come as naturally, we would all benefit from a willingness to serve in ways that are not natural to us when the circumstances call for it.
In the reading for today to set up the week ahead, Jesus is spending his last precious hours with his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion. He leaves them with a new command, love one another just as he had loved them. This remains the defining characteristic of all followers of Jesus to this day. How would you have felt if you were in that upper room receiving this new command from Jesus? If you think the bar was being set REALLY HIGH, you would absolutely be correct. Loving to the extent that Jesus loved is quite the task, and his first disciples probably felt the impossibility of that task because they were not equipped for the task…yet.
Fast forward to Acts 2 as the church begins to be established. Jesus followers were, in fact, loving in extravagant and sacrificial ways much like Jesus. What changed? The believers had become empowered and indwelt with God’s Spirit who ignited in them gifts and talents which allowed the church to become a force to be reckoned with, and the world has never been the same. Paul writes in Romans 8:11, “if the same Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
You, too, have been empowered and charged to love others in the manner of Jesus. If you haven’t yet taken a spiritual gifts inventory, check out the link in the resources below. As you become comfortable with serving from the various spiritual temperaments, begin to consider what sort of rhythm or environment of service might bring life to your soul. Perhaps you might consider adding a statement or two to your Rule of Life regarding spiritual practice of serving others.
RESOURCES
SPIRITUAL GIFTS ASSESSMENT
Serving out of your Spiritual Temperament
Serving out of your Spiritual Temperament
- The Importance of Serving Others: John Ortberg (YouTube)
- Practicing the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence