September 16, 2019

Steeped

Devotion for the Week...

I love tea. While I will occasionally drink an herbal tea, my preference is for a good, strong black tea with a splash of milk. Since I like it strong, I tend to boil the kettle, pour the water into the mug with the teabag and then go do something else for a few minutes while I wait for it to be ready. More than once, though, I've gotten distracted while the tea was steeping and forgot about it until it was cold, so now I usually set a timer so that doesn't happen.

Unfortunately, my body is really sensitive to caffeine and drinking even just one tea a day on a regular basis will make me have heart palpitations, which aren't fun. A few years ago, I switched to drinking decaf most of the time, but it was hard to find a good decaf tea. Most of them were weak and disappointing no matter how long I let it steep. When Mom told me they had found a brand of decaf that actually tasted like proper tea I immediately made that my new favourite tea 😊

I don't have a clue what the difference is between the weak, disappointing brands of decaf tea and the good, strong one that I enjoy every day. I do know that there was nothing I could do to make the weak ones taste like regular tea. Even using two teabags at once didn't produce a good cup of tea. Starting with a good teabag makes all the difference.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul told them to "be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power" (Ephesians 6:10). This verse is written as part of Paul's exhortation to the believers to stand firm against the attacks of the enemy, telling them to "put on the full armor of God" (v. 11), which includes the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit" (vv. 14-16) Read the full passage here.

It's important to note that the full armor is from God. We don't need to create, find, buy or otherwise acquire our own armor. God has created the armor and He gives it to us freely. We simply have to put it on.

Isn't it wonderful to know we don't have to stand strong on our own? It's like the difference between the weak, disappointing tea and the good, strong one, only even more pronounced. On my own I am not strong at all, but in God's strength I can do anything. Philippians 4:13 says it plainly: "For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." I want that kind of strength in my life!

So how do we be strong in the Lord? Well, to put on the belt of truth, we must be familiar with the truth, which is found in our Bibles. To put on the breastplate of righteousness, we must have trusted Jesus as our Savior because only He is righteous and it is His righteousness we put on, not our own. Do you see where I'm going with this? To be strong, to put on the armor He provides, we need to know God. It's not that we need to know of God, but that we need to know Him personally as our Savior and friend.
Devotions on Christian living | DevotedQuilter.com
The most amazing and wonderful thing is, the more we know God, the more we have that relationship steeped into our lives, the stronger we will be.

How do you steep God into your life?

2 comments:

  1. I am making an effort to eliminate some of the "weak" sources of entertainment in my life and replace them with things that are more edifying, or at the very least, not just trashy! We are doing The Story this year at our church, and I need to start diving into that as well.

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  2. I hear you about caffeine and heart palpitations - not fun at all!
    I used to pray with / for my kids that they would remember to put on the armour of God as they headed out into their day - but I need to remember that it's something that I need to do daily as well! I find that I really need to concentrate on my devotions, and not just quickly read it and walk away without "absorbing" the message.

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