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Questions Week 7 Day 3

by David Joynt on June 07, 2017


 

DAY 11

GALATIANS 5:16-21

Imagine a sailboat without ballast. Sailboats are usually built with heavy materials in the keel to stabilize their movements in heavy winds. Without ballast boats cannot set a course and are simply blown wherever the wind takes them.

Human beings are similar, if you allow that our desires are like the wind. They shift and move and blow hard, sometimes, against the course we’ve set for ourselves. The direction of faith and values can be shifted by the force of sudden desire, unless the Spirit of God acts as ballast in our journey. What we call “conscience,” is the restraining weight of God’s direction when we are considering a course of action that will be futile or destructive.

How keen is your conscience? What activates it?

Do you have “ballast” that helps you set a steady course?

FAMILY TIME—

Which desire do you have that is hardest to control?

Discuss.

Tags: spirit of god

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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