SPIRITUAL EMPHASIS WEEK 2025
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL EMPHASIS WEEK?
Spiritual Emphasis Week creates time to pursue deeper connections and an understanding of who God is, what He’s done, and the opportunity to take the first or next step to strengthen our relationships with Jesus. Our desire is that you will grow in their relationship with Him, strengthen relationships with your classmates, have accountability with each other, and foster a school culture where you feel bold enough to live out your faith.
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WEDNESDAY: THE POWER OF 22 INCHES 12
ENLARGE THE PLACE OF YOUR TENT, AND LET THE CURTAINS OF YOUR HABITATIONS BE STRETCHED OUT; DO NOT HOLD BACK; LENGTHEN YOUR CORDS AND STRENGTHEN YOUR STAKES.
Isaiah 54:2
A NOTE FROM MR. BRAZELL
CHCA’s mission, above English and Math, is to provide you with the opportunity to hear the gospel, know the gospel, share the gospel, and live the gospel.
Students, I want you to know that you, yes you, have been specifically prayed for by name in preparation for this week. Some might not understand the phrase “Spiritual Emphasis” or the incredible value it could bring to your life. Some might even ask, “Why do we at Cottage Hill Christian Academy need something called Spiritual Emphasis Week? Isn’t that the goal of Christian education in the first place?” The answer to this question and the purpose surrounding spiritual emphasis at CHCA both begin with our mission and vision statement and at the very core of who we are.
This week we have scheduled intentional time to learn, reflect, and connect with Jesus. Our desire is that you will grow in your relationship with Him, strengthen relationships with your classmates, have
accountability with each other, and foster a school culture where you feel confident to live out your faith.
While each of these aspects is important during each school day, the importance of setting aside dedicated time in these areas can be compared to studying for a test, preparing for a program, or playing a scrimmage in athletics. Extra focus and energy are put into each of these events to better prepare yourself and your team for the future.
Each day the schedule is filled with exciting and important activities that make up the educational journey. Spiritual Emphasis Week creates time to pursue deeper connections and an understanding of who He is, What He’s done, and the opportunity to take the first or next step to strengthen our relationships with Jesus.
We hope you enjoy the daily devotions found in this book
and we are grateful for the intentional investment made by Andrew Waite and Katie West to produce these for this week. We pray that your heart will be softened and you are open to hearing His voice as you set aside time each day. CHCA’s mission above english and math is to provide you an opportunity for you to hear the gospel, know the gospel, share the gospel, and live the gospel. Spiritual Emphasis Week teaches us to share God’s truth and spread His love.
This week is more valuable than any quiz or test we give. This is our mission as we keep the main thing the main thing!
Please know that we love you and are praying for you!
Chris Brazell Head of School
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MONDAY
MAKE ROOM
ENLARGE THE PLACE OF YOUR TENT, AND LET THE CURTAINS OF YOUR HABITATIONS BE STRETCHED OUT; DO NOT HOLD BACK; LENGTHEN YOUR CORDS AND STRENGTHEN YOUR STAKES.
Isaiah 54:2
Welcome to Spiritual Emphasis week! For the remainder of the week, we will be digging deeper into our walk with Christ, examining where we are in our relationship with Him, and preparing our hearts for the new work that He wants to do in every one of our hearts. Get excited, stay engaged, and allow God to speak to you in a whole new way this week.
This year we want to focus in on what it means to make room for God in our lives. Maybe you would say that you do make room for God in your life, that you attend church almost every Sunday, you make three out of the four Wednesday night gatherings at your church per month, and you “do your best” to stay in God’s Word as much as you can. Maybe, if you were honest, you would admit that God doesn’t have as much room in your life as He should. Wherever you are at in your walk with Christ, we all need to be better at making room for Him in our daily lives.
So how do we go about truly making room for Christ in our lives? What do we do to make Him our top priority and keep Him at the center of everything we do? It starts recognizing where we are in our lives in relation to where Christ is calling us to be. Because we live in a world that tells us to focus on ourselves and always keeps us on the go, life for many of us is all about achieving what we want or need to feel good about ourselves. We hold back from investing in things that may take us out of routine or make us uncomfortable because we do not like change or desire
our lives to be any different than what we have attempted to build them into. Instead, we live our lives the way we believe they should be lived, centered around and based on our own desires, forgetting that life itself is a gift given moment by moment from a Creator, a Father, and a Savior who loves us more than we could fathom and has an intentional purpose for each and every one of our lives to make Him known and to further His Kingdom.
Isaiah 54:2 challenges us to not hold back any part of who we are from who God is, but to exchange our selfish ambition and desires for His plan and purpose for our lives, to ground and strengthen ourselves in His truth, and to enlarge our minimal human perspective to see the eternal, heaven-sized perspective so that we can live out the life God has called each of us to live. All of these things requires a willingness to be intentional in making room for Jesus in our everyday lives, spending time in prayer, in worship, and in His Word daily seeking direction from Him, not from our own hearts or the world around us.
If you are in a season of doubt, of worry, of unknown, in a place where you thought you had everything you needed in life but still feel empty or missing something, lean into these next five days and ask God to show you His plan for your life, be open handed to what God wants to give you, and be willing to make room in your heart for God to begin the new work He has in store for you.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
1. HOW WOULD YOU CURRENTLY DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST?
2. ARE THERE SPECIFIC HABITS OR ROUTINES THAT MAY BE PREVENTING YOU FROM FULLY PRIORITIZING YOUR WALK WITH CHRIST?
3. IN WHAT AREAS OF YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE MAKING ROOM FOR GOD, AND WHERE DO YOU SENSE HE IS ASKING FOR MORE?
4. WHAT PRACTICAL STEPS CAN YOU TAKE THIS WEEK TO MAKE MORE ROOM FOR CHRIST IN YOUR DAILY LIFE?
5. HOW CAN YOU USE THIS WEEK TO PREPARE YOUR HEART FOR THE WORK GOD WANTS TO DO IN YOUR LIFE?
TUESDAY
IT’S TIME TO CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOSET
SET YOUR MINDS ON THINGS THAT ARE ABOVE, NOT ON THINGS THAT ARE ON EARTH. FOR YOU HAVE DIED, AND YOUR LIFE IS HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.
READ: COLOSSIANS 3:2-3
Growing up, my brother and I dreaded closet cleanout day. It felt like a monthly chore as my mom made us take everything out, try on clothes, and decide what to pass down, donate, or discard. I hated it, not just because it took time but because I never wanted to part with anything. Even old, too-small shirts or torn shorts somehow felt essential to keep. Ironically, those “must-keep” items stayed buried in the back of the closet, unseen and unworn, serving no purpose other than taking up space where they didn’t belong.
The same thing happens with sin in our lives. Many times, instead of dragging sin into the light, completely repenting of it, and leaving it behind, we have a hard time releasing control of the selfish desires that have become daily habits to us. We allow the things that we have “nailed to the cross” and “buried with Christ” to remain buried deep in our hearts where they no longer belong. Just like the clothes that no longer fit me continued to take up space in my closet, the sinful desires that we hold onto continue to take up space in our spiritual closets. The truth is this, what we don’t remove from our lives remains in our lives, and those sinful things that remain in our lives take up space and prevent us from living the life that Christ not only has called us to live but spilled His blood for us to claim.
In this passage, Paul gives us three practical steps to help us remove the things rooted in our old lives that no longer belong in our new lives in Christ:
1. Set your mind on things above Every thought you have is usually determined by what you allow yourself to see. What you allow your eyes to look at determines what you think about in your mind, what you think about in your mind determines what you believe in your heart, and what you believe in your heart you tend to follow and live out. For us to be able to set our minds on things above we must first know where to fix our eyes. Hebrews 12:2 tells us to, “…[fix our eyes on] Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” How do we that? By daily spending time in God’s Word, in prayer, in worship, and in community with like-minded, fellow believers. Fixing our eyes on the things of God enables us to set our minds on Him. When we set our minds on the things of God and meditate on them, our faith grows, and we begin to trust in His truth. This faith helps us to live out the life God has called us to live.
2. Put away what doesn’t belong in your life with Christ anymore True repentance and humility are required to completely abandon your old life full of sinful and selfish desires and to begin walking in the new life Christ has given you. The things that we allow to remain from our lives away from Christ take up space and hinder our ability to make room for God to do a new work in and through our lives for His kingdom.
3. Daily put on the things of Christ. Once we have set our minds on the things above and have completely removed the things that no longer belong to our new lives in Christ, we must choose to live out who Christ is in every area of our lives. Jesus says this is John 14:15: “If you love me then you will obey my commandments.” Our lives in Christ are rooted and grounded in our love for Him, and if we truly love Him, we will live a life of obedience to Him.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
1. WHAT “OLD CLOTHES” (SINFUL HABITS OR SELFISH DESIRES) MIGHT YOU STILL BE HOLDING ONTO IN YOUR SPIRITUAL CLOSET?
2. ARE THERE AREAS IN YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU RESIST CHANGE OR CLING TO THINGS THAT NO LONGER SERVE YOUR WALK WITH CHRIST?
3. WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY SETTING YOUR MIND AND EYES ON? ARE THEY FOCUSED ON THINGS OF THE WORLD OR THINGS OF GOD?
4. WHAT DOES “PUTTING ON THE THINGS OF CHRIST” LOOK LIKE IN YOUR DAILY LIFE?
WEDNESDAY
THE POWER OF 22 INCHES
MARTHA, MARTHA, YOU ARE ANXIOUS AND TROUBLED ABOUT MANY THINGS, BUT ONE THING IS NECESSARY. MARY HAS CHOSEN THE GOOD PORTION, WHICH WILL NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM HER.
READ: LUKE 10:38-42
Twenty-two inches. That’s the average distance between the sole of your feet and the top of your knee cap. While that may seem like a random fact to you, that distance held a lot of importance and weight to Mary. Those twenty-two inches was the journey she took from standing beside Jesus to sitting at his feet, positioning herself in the midst of the business of the day to experience a powerful encounter with her Messiah. In that moment, Mary was practicing what we talked about yesterday – setting her mind on things above by fixing her eyes on Jesus.
Martha, on the other hand, missed the power of that twenty-two-inch journey. Instead of focusing on who was in her house, she found herself distracted on what she had to do to impress as the host. Seeing that her sister wasn’t helping her, she complained to Jesus insisting that He tell Mary to get up and assist her. Jesus responded by showing Martha what really mattered – that Mary decided to make room in the business of her life to spend time with the one who gave her life. In fact, Jesus says this about Mary’s decision to block out the distractions and solely focus on Him:
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Jesus tells Martha that in the midst of a world full of distractions, temptations, brokenness, and sin, there is truly only one thing that is necessary: how you position yourself in relation to Christ.
Each of us have daily tendencies to act just like Martha, to allow the distractions of everyday life in this world to lure us away from spending time with Jesus, growing in our relationship with Him, and living out the purpose in which He has called us to. However, we all also have the ability and the authority that Mary had to eliminate the things around her that did not matter in order to make room for Jesus to directly speak into and change her life. And that is exactly what Jesus desires, for you to fix your eyes on Him, to take the twenty-two inch journey to position yourself at His feet, and to make room for Him to love and to lead you.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
1. ARE THERE AREAS IN YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU RELATE MORE TO MARTHA, FOCUSING ON TASKS RATHER THAN TIME WITH JESUS?
2. HOW DOES JESUS’ RESPONSE TO MARTHA CHALLENGE YOU TO REEVALUATE YOUR PRIORITIES?
3. HOW DOES FIXING YOUR EYES ON JESUS IMPACT YOUR ABILITY TO GROW IN YOUR FAITH AND FULFILL YOUR PURPOSE?
4. WHAT DOES “MAKING ROOM” FOR JESUS LOOK LIKE IN YOUR CURRENT SEASON OF LIFE?
THURSDAY
HOW FAR WILL YOU GO?
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?
READ: MARK 2:1-12
Imagine having a close friend who has been paralyzed their entire life. One day, you hear about Jesus, a man performing miracles and healing people. Filled with hope, you and a few friends carry your paralyzed friend to the house where Jesus is teaching, only to find it overcrowded, with no way in. Despite the obstacles, your friend is closer than ever to being healed and meeting Jesus face-to-face. You have a big decision to make: give up and wait for another opportunity or do whatever it takes to bring your friend to Jesus.
The friends in this passage of Scripture had one thing on their mind that day Jesus had returned to Capernaum: to get their paralyzed friend in front of Him by any means necessary. The massive crowd present and the impossible odds of traversing it not once made them flinch. It only created that much more urgency and determination to accomplish their goal. Thinking quickly, the friends decided that if there wasn’t any room left to get to Jesus, they would just have to make room to get to him. Moments later, the friends were tearing off the roof of the house in order to lower their friend directly in front of the One whom they firmly believed could change their friend’s life forever.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to be disciples that make
disciples. The life-changing encounter that we have had with Christ is not solely for us alone, but for anyone who will humble themselves in repentance and confess Jesus as the Lord of their life. The reality is, each of us know people who have never had that life-changing encounter, who have never accepted Jesus as Lord and surrendered their lives completely to Him. More than just praying for them, we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus - a reflection of who he is and His love for us - to those people daily. Most times this requires us to step out of our own comfort zones, be intentional in ways that we may not normally be intentional, and be completely available to how and when God wants to use us for His glory, no matter the cost. Just like the friends in this passage made the choice to make room for their paralyzed friend to have an encounter with Jesus, we too are called to make room - to go above and beyond to reach, love and direct those around us who are spiritually paralyzed toward a life-changing encounter with the Savior of the world.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
1. WHAT STANDS OUT TO YOU ABOUT THE FAITH AND DETERMINATION OF THE FRIENDS WHO BROUGHT THE PARALYTIC TO JESUS?
2. HOW DOES STEPPING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE HELP YOU GROW IN YOUR FAITH AND REFLECT JESUS TO OTHERS?
3. WHO IN YOUR LIFE NEEDS A LIFE-CHANGING ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS, AND HOW CAN YOU HELP THEM GET CLOSER TO HIM?
THE TIME TO MAKE ROOM IS NOW. FRIDAY
We have made it to Friday! Our prayer is that as we’ve set aside extra time this week to dig into God’s Word and explore how we can make room for Him to work in our lives, you have experienced a fresh encounter with Jesus. We pray that you have been strengthened in your identity in Christ, that God has spoken a new word into your heart, and are excited to walk with you as you grow in your relationship with Christ and live out your God-given purpose.
Going back to our devotion from Monday, Isaiah 54:2 challenges us to “not hold back”. This week we have talked about what we have to do to completely make room for God in our lives and how we are called to make room for others to experience the
same kind of life-change in Christ that we have. Now is the time to put our words into action. Now is the time to step out of the way and make room for God to do what He wants to do in our lives. Now is the time to be completely available to how He wants to use us to point people to Him. In this week of Spiritual emphasis, God has gotten our attention and what better time to go “all in” with God and what He has in store for us than right now.
Romans 12:1 says this, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Today, do not hold back from God any longer.
Present yourself to him daily as a “living sacrifice”, available to whatever He has purposed for your life, something far greater than you could ever think or imagine. Clear your spiritual closets of everything that no longer belongs in your new life with Christ. Experience the power of the twenty-two inch journey and position yourself daily at His feet, expectant for a fresh, new encounter with your Savior. Put feet to your faith and go above and beyond to make room for others who need to encounter Jesus to experience life-change. Choose today, right in this moment, to MAKE ROOM for Jesus in your life and to fall into the fullness of who He is and all that He has in store for you.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
1. WHAT HAS GOD REVEALED TO YOU THIS WEEK ABOUT AREAS OF YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU NEED TO MAKE MORE ROOM FOR HIM?
2. ROMANS 12:1 CALLS US TO PRESENT OURSELVES AS A “LIVING SACRIFICE.” WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE PRACTICALLY IN YOUR DAILY LIFE?
3. HOW HAS YOUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST BEEN STRENGTHENED THROUGH SPIRITUAL EMPHASIS WEEK?
4. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU TO NOT HOLD BACK IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST?
5. WHAT SPECIFIC ACTIONS WILL YOU TAKE TO LIVE OUT THE FULLNESS OF GOD’S PURPOSE FOR YOUR LIFE STARTING TODAY?
THOUGH THE MOUNTAINS BE SHAKEN AND THE HILLS BE REMOVED, YET MY UNFAILING LOVE FOR YOU WILL NOT BE SHAKEN NOR MY COVENANT OF PEACE BE REMOVED,” SAYS THE LORD, WHO HAS COMPASSION ON YOU.
Isaiah 54:10