Recently I was sitting in one of our local coffee shops having my devotional time…but I wasn’t alone.
To my right was a young leader from West Salem Foursquare reading her Bible. At my table was our youth pastor digging into the Scripture (and occasionally checking his Twitter account). Then about 20 minutes later one of our quality teenagers joined us. He mentioned that he had “a bunch of homework to get done,” but he wanted to start out his day in God’s Word.
I love this.
Regardless of where you are (coffee shop, home, work or school) and regardless of who you are with (a friend, family member, or just the Holy Spirit), a consistent time in the Word of God is so vital for growing followers of Jesus.
In a day when Pentecostal/Charismatic people have been accused of being an “inch think and a mile wide,” we need believers that go deeper in both the life of the Spirit as well as in the truth of the Scripture.
Jesus did both. He knew the one/two punch of the Spirit and the Word.
Matthew chapter 4 details how Jesus was both initiated by the Spirit and infused by the Scripture. In other words, he was baptized by the presence of God and brought up by the Word of God.
This is a primary reason why Jesus had such staying power. He was able to stand up to the devil’s temptation and endure the pressure of physical hunger by the power of the Spirit and the life-giving Word of the Lord.
Do you have staying power? Are you going deeper in the things of the God?