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Get Real October 25 Devotional

by David Joynt on October 25, 2024


1 PETER 1:22 | 22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual affection, love one another deeply from the heart.

 

Obedience can seem cold and impersonal, like an employee following through on a prescribed duty or mandatory routine. Obedience can be forced and automatic, like a solider responding to a superior. But here we learn obedience arises from passionate love. It is not merely sentimental, nor is it insincere, reluctant conformity. It is fervent, “all in” care, genuine and committed, in which our deeds flow out of our inner attitudes. It comes from the heart.

 

The Christian concept of love unites feelings and attitudes with decisions and convictions, issuing in actions and virtues.

 

Does this describe any of your relationships?

 

 

Gracious God,

Take away anything cold and impersonal in my responses. Remove what is forced and reluctant. May my acts of love be all in and personal, fueled by reverent awe and genuine devotion to You and others.

Amen.

 

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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