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The Sixth Day Exercise for August 29, 2015

daily text logoAugust 29, 2015

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (NET)

The Sixth Day Exercise

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The past couple of weeks I’ve been telling you the story of the three questions for self examination I learned from Maxie Dunnam. You may remember the first question was, “Am I growing?” The second question was, “Do I really want to change?” Today we get to the third question.

The first question calls for Holy Spirit empowered self assessment. The second question calls for the focusing of our intentions and the exercise of our will in submission to God’s will. This third and final question of the trilogy gets at our desires.

Authentic transformation, from one degree of glory to the next, happens as gut level honesty gives way to the purification of our intentions and sublimation of our will. Authentic transformation is sustained as it becomes fueled and fired by the Holy Spirit flooding our heart’s desires with the very Mind of Christ.

To say “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” is the same thing as saying, “And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

So what’s the third question in the series of three? It’s, “How deep is my desire for Holiness?”

This is a hard one to quantify. It is probably best assessed through comparative question, “How deep is my desire for the things that compromise Holiness?” I’ll give you a chance to take a shot at the question in the short survey in this link:

DO THE SIXTH DAY EXERCISE HERE.

In case you are new to the Sixth Day Exercise. In case you are just joining us, each week we share in an exercise called “The Sixth Day Exercise.” As Genesis 1 has it, God created human beings in his own image on the sixth day. Genesis 3 shows us the desecration of the image of God in our race which has only compounded itself across the centuries. It’s why the Image Bearer himself, Jesus Christ, came. His life, death, resurrection and ascension reversed the curse of sin and death and created a pathway whereby our broken race could be made gloriously whole again; restored to the Creator’s intent. Paul put it this way:

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:22. 

Given we were made on the Sixth Day, it makes sense that we might stop and assess how it’s going on the long journey of being “remade” on each successive sixth day.

DO THE SIXTH DAY EXERCISE HERE.

P.S. Join the Daily Text Fasting Challenge. It’s 40 days, one day per week at a time, over the next 52 weeks. It’s a food only fast. Begins after supper on one day and ends at 4pm the next- 2 meals. Liquids fine. Fasting goes better together. I’ll send you a short weekly encouragement email if you register.– sign up here.

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J.D. Walt writes daily for Seedbed’s Daily Text. He serves as Seedbed’s Sower in Chief. Follow him @jdwalt on Twitter or email him at jd.walt@seedbed.com. Get the Daily Text delivered to your inbox fresh every morning. Subscribe HERE.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

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