Scripture: Luke 6:43–45; Galatians 5:22–23 Runtime: ~5 min

Nobody has to talk a fig tree into producing figs. The fruit just tells you what the tree already is. We close out this week with Jesus turning from training to fruit — and the reminder that all our effort was never meant to manufacture what only God can grow.

In this episode:

• Jesus' picture of the fig tree: fruit isn't forced out by effort, it's evidence of what's already true underneath
• Why training doesn't manufacture fruit — it keeps us rooted near the source that actually grows it
• Paul's list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, and why love leads it — right back to where the week began
• The whole point of following rather than fandom: not admiring Jesus from a distance, but slowly becoming like Him

Reflection: What practice most reliably puts you close to Jesus — and is anything crowding it out lately? If you looked more like Him a year from now, what's the first thing the people closest to you would notice?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:11–16 Runtime: ~5 min

Paul tells Timothy exactly what to train in — and it's not technique or strategy. It's speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. And the goal isn't arrival, it's visible progress. Today we look at why Paul refuses to let Timothy separate what he believes from how he lives, and why that charge lands on every one of us, not just pastors.

In this episode:

• Paul's list of what to train in — speech, conduct, love, faith, purity — with no mention of technique or strategy
• Why Paul asks for progress, not perfection, and what that means for how we should see our own growth
• How Paul's charge to Timothy to use his gifts and not neglect them applies to every believer, not just those with a pulpit
• Why Paul refuses to separate life and doctrine — truth and grace were never meant to be traded off against each other

Reflection: Which is easier for you — truth or grace — and why? Where is God gifting you, and how are you using it for the good of the people around you?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:6–10; Matthew 11:28–30 Runtime: ~6 min

Patience, humility, sacrificial love — none of it comes automatically. Paul told a young pastor named Timothy to train himself to be godly, the same word used for an athlete's training. But there's one crucial difference between us and the athletes: we're not earning a prize by our own strength. We're working alongside a Savior who calls the whole thing easy — because He's the one pulling with us.

In this episode:

• Paul's charge to Timothy to "train yourself to be godly," borrowing the language of athletic discipline
• Why we can't simply wish our way into Christlikeness — obedience under pressure is built by what we practice ahead of time
• The key difference between spiritual training and athletic training: our hope rests in the living God, not in how the training is going
• Jesus' invitation to take His yoke — a well-fitting harness carried alongside Him, not instead of us

Reflection: If love is something we practice, what would practicing it look like this week in one specific relationship? When your spiritual efforts go badly, which do you actually put your hope in — your own effort, or God?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: 1 John 4:16–21; Romans 12:1–2 Runtime: ~6 min

It's hard to follow someone you dread. A lot of us carry a quiet sense that God is mostly disappointed, keeping a tally somewhere. Today we see why that fear has no place in a relationship built on mercy — and what it looks like to offer God our whole lives in response, not just the parts we think of as spiritual.

In this episode:

• Why John can say believers "are like Jesus" in this world — not sinless perfection, but a new standing before God because of the cross
• How perfect love drives out the fear of judgment that keeps us at a distance from God
• Paul's call in Romans 12 to offer our bodies — our whole, ordinary lives — as a living sacrifice and act of true worship
• Why the order always matters: God's mercy comes first, and transformation follows from there, never the other way around

Reflection: Are there areas where a low-grade dread of God still shapes how you approach Him? What would it look like to come closer? Name one ordinary part of this week where offering it to God would actually change what you do.

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: 1 John 4:7–12 Runtime: ~9 min

Most of us are fans of something — a team, a singer, a show we could talk about for an hour. But fandom is admiring from a distance, and it's conditional. Following is different. It's walking in someone's steps and becoming like them. This week we're asking what it actually looks like to move from casual fan of Jesus to faithful follower — and it starts, before anything we do, with what He's already done.

In this episode:

• The vision behind the We Dream series, and this week's focus on becoming faithful followers rather than casual fans
• The difference between a fan (admiring from the stands) and a follower (walking in someone's steps and imitating their way)
• How 1 John reframes "God is love" as an action, not a feeling — proven by God sending His Son as the actual means of dealing with sin
• Why training, effort, and spiritual growth never earn us more of God's love — we already have all of it

Reflection: Where have you been measuring God's love for you by how you're doing, rather than by what He's already done? Who's one person in your life where loving them well would mean something specific — and maybe inconvenient — this week? Name it, then do it.

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: Hebrews 10:19–25 Runtime: ~5 min

All week we've watched the exiles chase one thing: getting near to God. The altar, the sacrifices, the temple foundation — all of it pointed toward something bigger. Today the writer of Hebrews names what that something is. Everything the altar pointed toward, Christ has become — and because of him, the invitation is simple: draw near.

In this episode:

• How Jesus becomes both the sacrifice and the great priest that the exiles' altar could only point toward
• Why authentic worship is "a sincere heart and full assurance of faith," not a performance
• How drawing near to God is meant to pull us toward each other — worship was never designed to stay private

Reflection: The exiles needed an altar, a priest, and a sacrifice to come near to God. What has it changed for you that Jesus is all three? Who's the one person you could spur on toward love and good deeds this week?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: Ezra 3:10–13 Runtime: ~6 min

The foundation is finished — just the foundation, nothing more — and the whole community stops to throw a worship service anyway. Trumpets, cymbals, a shout so loud it carries for miles. But underneath the celebration, the older men who remember Solomon's temple in its glory weep aloud, right there in the middle of it. And nobody shushes them.

In this episode:

• Why the exiles praised God at the halfway point instead of waiting for the finished product
• How joy and grief blended together so completely that "you couldn't tell which was which" (v. 13) — and why that's what honest worship sounds like
• The temptation to arrive at church wearing the face we think it requires, instead of bringing what's actually true

Reflection: Which are you more likely to bring into worship this week — your joy or your grief? What keeps the other one hidden?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: Ezra 3:7–9 Runtime: ~5 min

Before they laid a single stone, the exiles camped out in flimsy shelters for the Festival of Tabernacles — a deliberate reminder that their ancestors had nothing but God in the wilderness. Then, poor and scraping by in a ruined city, they hired skilled craftsmen and paid to ship in premium cedar. Nobody would've blamed them for cutting corners. They didn't.

In this episode:

• Why the exiles' choice to import Lebanon cedar — the same wood Solomon used — makes their worship "costly, not casual"
• The difference between worship and routine: one gives God our best, the other gives him the leftovers
• How this shows up in the depth of our prayers, the eagerness of our giving, and the energy we bring to serving

Reflection: The exiles didn't have much, but they still sent for the best. Where does God get your best this week — and where does he get the leftovers?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Scripture: Ezra 3:1–6 Runtime: ~5 min

A group of Jewish exiles finally makes it home to Jerusalem — and it's a wreck. Broken walls, burned-out houses, a pile of rubble where the temple used to stand. No good reason to celebrate. And yet the first thing they build isn't a house or a wall — it's an altar.

In this episode:

• Why the exiles worshipped before a single stone of the temple foundation was laid
• The temptation to promise God "the front of the line" only once life settles down — and why that moment never actually arrives
• What it looks like to build an altar in the rubble instead of waiting for ideal conditions

Reflection: What are you waiting to have in place before you give God your wholehearted attention? What's one act of worship you could move to the front of the line this week?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.

Narrated & Written by Lisa Scheffler | Series: We Dream

Scripture: Psalm 95:1–7 Runtime: ~10 min

We're kicking off a brand new series, and it starts with a question worth sitting with: what if the "better" we keep chasing was never about better habits or better focus, but about becoming a church shaped by real worship? Over the next four weeks we're dreaming big about what Christ Fellowship could become — starting this week with what it actually means to worship.

In this episode:

• The vision behind the We Dream series: a "better church before a bigger church," built on authentic worship, faithful following, and love for neighbors and enemies alike
• Why the very first sermon ever preached at Christ Fellowship came from Colossians 1 — and why "we're all about Jesus" isn't just a slogan
• How Psalm 95 moves from singing to kneeling, and what that progression reveals about what worship actually asks of us
• A preview of Ezra 3, where a group of exiles returns home to a city in ruins and worships before they rebuild anything else

Reflection: Psalm 95 moves from singing to kneeling — what does that suggest about what worship asks of us? When you hear the word "worship," what's your first thought, and how might God be inviting you to widen it this week?

Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinney

Get the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGD

If you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.