Fathers and Guides
New life emerges when the hand opens and the heart abides.
📖 Devotional Credit: In Christ by E. Stanley Jones
📸 Photo Credit: Unsplash
Today’s reflection by E. Stanley Jones draws a sharp but loving contrast between those who merely guide believers and those who become spiritual fathers—those who, through their union with Christ, participate in His creative life to birth new life in others.
Paul makes this distinction clear in 1 Corinthians 4:15, explaining that while believers may have “countless guides in Christ,” they have only one “father in Christ Jesus” through the gospel. The guide manages what already exists. The spiritual father, however, becomes a conduit through whom new life is born.
Jones reminds us that this isn’t just the domain of pastors or missionaries. Every believer who is truly surrendered to Christ carries the breathtaking privilege of co-creating with Him—seeing new souls birthed, new love stirred, new hope awakened, new movements formed. The creativity isn’t from self—it is the Spirit of Christ at work through a yielded vessel.
Guiding others without being creative in Christ can slip into quiet superiority. But the surrendered believer doesn’t manage others—they abide in Christ and become the spiritual soil from which eternal life blossoms in others. This is the high calling of life in Christ: not to control, but to create.
✍🏼 Personalized Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
I did not call you merely to manage what I’ve made—I called you to carry My life within you so that others might live. You were not made to supervise spiritual growth but to sow seeds of My Spirit that bring forth new life.
Through your union with Me, you are more than a disciple—you are a vessel of divine creativity. You share in the ministry of reconciliation. As I birthed you by grace through faith, I now express My life through you to awaken faith in others. This is not a task for the elite or the ordained—it is the normal outflow of a surrendered soul.
You are not a fussy guide; you are a branch abiding in the Vine. I do the creating. You simply abide. And as you abide, others are drawn—not to your cleverness, not to your personality, but to the Life they sense pulsing within you. That Life is Mine.
So release your grip on the need to fix, lead, or organize those around you. Let Me express My creative power through your quiet surrender. I will draw the lost, heal the broken, and give new birth through your yielded heart.
You do not need to try harder—you only need to trust deeper. In Me, you are not a manager of life. You are a messenger of resurrection.
📖 Scriptures referenced: 1 Corinthians 4:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17–20; John 15:5; Galatians 2:20; 1 Peter 1:23
🧶 Real-Life Analogy
It’s like planting a packet of wildflower seeds in a forgotten patch of soil. You don’t create the flowers—they’re already in the seed. But when you open your hand and scatter them, the earth begins to bloom. The beauty comes not from your effort, but from what was hidden in the seed all along, waiting for release.
🙏🏼 Prayer of Confidence
Father, I thank You that You have not asked me to manufacture results. You have made me a vessel through whom Your very life flows. I rejoice that I don’t need to direct or manage spiritual growth—I simply get to abide. Thank You that Your Spirit within me brings forth new life, new joy, and new hope in others. Today, I rest in the creative power of Christ in me, trusting that as I walk in quiet surrender, Your eternal work will go forth.