Daily Devo: Fathers Day

Based on a sermon preached by Greg Ballog, 6/21/26

Day 1 - Knowing Him
Opening Prayer
Father, thank You for the gift of Your Son, Jesus, and for the invitation to truly know Him - not just know about Him. I come to You today asking that You would open my heart to the difference between head knowledge and heart relationship. Reveal to me any places where I have settled for information about You instead of intimacy with You. Draw me close, Lord, closer than I have ever been before.

Scripture Reading
Today's passage comes from 1 John 2:3-6. We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says I know him but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

Daily Topic
There is a significant difference between knowing about someone and truly knowing them. You can know every fact about a person - their birthday, their history, their habits - and still be a complete stranger to them. The same is true with Jesus. Many people know facts about Him. They know He was born in Bethlehem, that He performed miracles, that He died on a cross and rose again. But John is pointing us toward something far deeper than a collection of theological facts. He is pointing us toward a living, breathing, transforming relationship.

John says that the mark of truly knowing Jesus is that our relationship with sin changes. Not that we become perfect, but that we no longer make peace with sin the way we once did. A real encounter with Jesus does not leave us the same. When we know Him - when we spend time with Him, listen to Him, walk with Him - we begin to look more like Him. His commands stop feeling like burdens we carry and start feeling like a description of who we are becoming. The person who claims to know God but keeps on living in deliberate, comfortable contradiction to His word has not yet encountered the real Jesus. The transforming power of relationship is the evidence John is after.

This is not about earning salvation through behavior. It is about the natural fruit of genuine closeness. Think about any deep relationship in your life. When you truly love someone, you do not have to be forced to consider them. You want to. You find yourself shaped by them without even trying. That is what John is describing. Knowing Jesus is not a one-time event we check off a list. It is an ongoing, living connection that quietly changes everything about how we live.

Life Application Exercise
Today, take a few minutes to sit quietly and ask yourself an honest question: Do I know Jesus, or do I know about Him? Think about the last week of your life. Where did you turn when you were anxious - to Jesus or to something else? When you made a decision, did you naturally include Him in your thinking? Write down one area of your life where you are currently living as if Jesus is not really present or involved. It does not need to be a dramatic failure. It could simply be a corner of your life you have not yet handed over to Him.

Then take that one thing and bring it into a brief, honest conversation with God right now. You do not need formal words. Just tell Him where you are. That act of honesty and invitation is the beginning of the kind of knowing John is describing.

Closing Prayer
Lord, I want to know You - really know You - not just know things about You. Forgive me for the ways I have treated our relationship as information rather than intimacy. Today I choose to open the parts of my heart and life that I have been keeping at a distance from You. Thank You that You already know me fully and still draw me close.

Day 2 - Where Do You Remain?
Opening Prayer
Jesus, today I want to think honestly about where I truly live in my spirit. I confess that I sometimes treat You like a place I visit rather than a place I stay. I ask You to show me what it really looks like to remain in You - not just in the moments when I need something, but in the ordinary flow of every day. Make my heart a place that is at home in Yours.

Scripture Reading
Today's passage comes from John 15:1-4. I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Daily Topic
The Greek word at the heart of this passage is meno. It means to remain, to abide, to stay, to dwell. It is not a word that describes a quick visit or a passing glance. It describes a settled, continuous presence - the way you live in a home rather than the way you walk through a stranger's hallway. Jesus uses this word to describe the kind of relationship He is calling us into with Him. He is not asking us to visit Him once a week or to check in when life gets hard. He is asking us to make Him our actual dwelling place.

Think about what it means to truly live somewhere. Your home is where you return at the end of the day. It is where you feel safe enough to stop performing. It is the place that shapes your rhythms, your habits, and your sense of security. Jesus is saying that He wants to be that for us. He wants to be the place we return to, the place we think from, the place where our roots go down. Too often, though, we treat Him more like a vacation destination - somewhere we go for a spiritual retreat or in times of crisis - rather than the daily, ordinary, constant address of our souls.

The invitation is not complicated, but it is demanding. It asks us to reorient our whole inner life so that Jesus is the center rather than a resource on the side. It means that when we wake up, we are already at home in Him. When we go to work, we carry that home with us. When trouble comes, we do not have to travel a long distance to find Him - because we never left. This is the life Jesus is describing when He talks about remaining in the vine. It is not mystical performance. It is simply choosing, again and again, to stay.

Life Application Exercise
Today, try a simple practice of return. Every time you transition from one activity to another - finishing a meal, sitting down at your desk, getting in your car, putting your phone down - take one slow breath and say in your mind or out loud: I am remaining in You. It is not a magic formula. It is a gesture of intention. You are practicing the habit of staying rather than drifting.

At the end of the day, reflect on this question: Were there moments today when I felt far from Jesus? What pulled me away - busyness, worry, distraction, or something else? Notice the patterns without judgment, and then simply come back. The whole point of meno is that it is not a one-time arrival. It is a constant returning. Every time you notice you have drifted and choose to come back, you are practicing what Jesus is asking for.

Closing Prayer
Thank You, Jesus, for being a place I can actually stay - not just visit. I am sorry for the ways I have let busyness and distraction become more of a home to me than Your presence. Tonight I choose to remain in You, to rest in You, to let You be the address of my heart. Teach me what it means to wake up tomorrow already home in You.

Day 3 - The Pruning Process
Opening Prayer
Father, I will be honest - I do not always like the idea of pruning. I would rather grow without discomfort, bear fruit without struggle, and follow You without pain. But I trust that You are a wise and loving Gardener, and I ask You today to help me see the difficult seasons of my life through Your eyes. Give me faith to believe that Your cutting is always for the sake of greater fruitfulness, and that Your hand in my life is always kind.

Scripture Reading
Today's passage returns to John 15:2. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Daily Topic
One of the most important and often overlooked details in this verse is who is being pruned. Jesus does not say that only the unfruitful branches are cut. He says that the branches which are already bearing fruit - the branches that are doing well, that are growing, that are producing something good - those are the ones that get pruned too. This means that suffering, difficulty, and seasons of being cut back are not signs that something has gone wrong. They are signs that the Gardener is at work in a life that is already alive.
Not suffering in the Christian life is simply not an option. This is not a pessimistic statement - it is a liberating one. When we believe that pain means God is absent or displeased, we spend our hard seasons trying to figure out what we did wrong, or we lose our faith because we expected ease. But Jesus is telling us right here, plainly, that the branches He values most are the ones He prunes. The discomfort is not punishment. It is cultivation. The Gardener is not destroying the branch - He is redirecting its energy so that it produces more than it could have before.

Pruning in a vineyard means cutting away what is good so that something better can grow. The gardener removes healthy shoots - not diseased ones - because the vine's energy is limited, and without pruning, the plant spreads too wide, grows too thin, and produces fruit that is plentiful but small and weak. God does the same in our lives. He sometimes cuts away things that are not bad in themselves - busyness, ambitions, relationships, comfortable habits - because He sees that they are draining the energy meant to flow toward something deeper and more fruitful. What feels like loss from our perspective is, from His, an act of trust.

Life Application Exercise
Think about a current difficulty or a recent season of loss or cutback in your life. It does not have to be dramatic. It could be a relationship that grew distant, a role you lost, an opportunity that did not come through, or a season of feeling spiritually dry. Write it down in one sentence.

Now sit with this question: Is it possible that God is pruning rather than punishing? You do not have to feel certain about this. You are simply allowing the possibility. Ask God to show you what might be growing in you as a result of this pruning - even if you cannot see the fruit yet. Spend a few minutes in silence, holding that season before Him with open hands rather than clenched fists.

Closing Prayer
Lord, thank You for being a Gardener who knows exactly what He is doing. I confess that I have sometimes interpreted my hard seasons as Your absence or Your discipline, when You were actually tending to me with great care. Help me to trust the pruning process - not to enjoy the pain, but to believe in the purpose behind it. I surrender my seasons of cutting to Your hands, knowing that You are working for my greater fruitfulness.

Day 4 - Dependent on the Vine
Opening Prayer
Jesus, I come to You today with honesty about how independent I tend to be. I try to solve my own problems, manage my own life, and produce results in my own strength - and then I wonder why I feel so depleted and directionless. Today I want to learn what it really looks like to depend on You, not just in theory but in practice. Teach me that apart from You, I truly can do nothing, and that in You, all the fullness I need is already available.

Scripture Reading
Today's passage comes from John 15:5-8. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Daily Topic
Jesus makes one of the most radical claims in all of His teaching right here: apart from me, you can do nothing. Not a little. Not less. Nothing. This is not a statement about effort or talent. It is a statement about source. A branch does not produce grapes by working harder. It produces grapes by staying connected to the vine from which all nourishment flows. The moment it is cut off, it does not matter how healthy it looks or how diligently it tries - it is already dying, because the source of its life is gone.

Every independent role we have must be dependent on Jesus. Think about the roles you carry - parent, spouse, friend, employee, leader, neighbor. In each of these roles, there is a constant temptation to operate from your own resources: your own patience, your own wisdom, your own strength, your own goodness. And you can sustain that for a while, the same way a branch that has been cut can still look green for a day or two. But eventually the depletion becomes visible. The fruit stops coming. The words you speak carry less life. The love you give feels thinner and more conditional. That is not a character flaw - it is the inevitable result of a branch trying to live apart from its vine.

Dependence on Jesus is not weakness. It is the most mature thing a follower of Him can learn. It means going into every conversation, every responsibility, every creative task and every difficult relationship as someone who is consciously drawing from a source outside themselves. It means pausing before you respond in anger to ask for His patience. It means asking for wisdom before you make a decision instead of after. It means recognizing that the love you are supposed to give your family today is not something you manufacture - it is something you receive from Him and pass along. This is the life of the branch. It does not produce by straining. It produces by staying connected.

Life Application Exercise
Choose one role or responsibility you are carrying today - something specific, not abstract. It might be a conversation you need to have, a project you need to work on, or simply the role of being present for someone who needs you. Before you step into it, stop and do something simple: acknowledge out loud, even in a whisper, that you cannot do this well apart from Jesus, and ask Him to be the source of whatever you need for it.
Then, at the end of the day, notice whether that moment of intentional dependence made any difference in how you showed up. You are not grading yourself. You are simply becoming aware of the difference between operating from your own reserves and operating from His.

Closing Prayer
Jesus, You are the vine and I am a branch, and I want to live like I actually believe that. Forgive me for the ways I have tried to bear fruit through my own effort while keeping You at arm's length. Today I choose to stay connected - to draw from You in every role, every conversation, and every moment. Let Your life flow through mine and produce what I never could on my own.

Day 5 - Rooted in Love and Full of Fruit
Opening Prayer
Father, as this week closes, I want to settle into the deepest truth You have been speaking over me - that I am loved by You with the same love You have for Your Son, and that this love is the root from which everything else is meant to grow. I ask You today to let that love become more real to me than my failures, my doubts, or my striving. Root me in it so deeply that the fruit of my life becomes an overflow of what I have received rather than a performance of what I am trying to prove.

Scripture Reading
Today's passage comes from John 15:9-11 and Ephesians 3:16-19. From John 15: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. From Ephesians 3: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Daily Topic
Jesus tells His disciples that the love He has for them is the same love the Father has for Him. This is one of the most staggering statements in all of Scripture. The love between the Father and the Son is perfect, eternal, unbounded, and unbreakable. And Jesus says: that is the love I have for you. Remain in it. Do not wander out of it. Do not let guilt or shame or distraction pull you out of it. Stay. This is the invitation that ties the entire week together - meno, remaining, but now applied specifically to love. The dwelling place Jesus calls us into is not a place of performance or religious effort. It is a place of love.

Paul prays in Ephesians that we would be rooted and established in that love - that it would not be a passing emotion but a foundation. He wants us to have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is. Notice that he prays for power to grasp it - because human beings have a very hard time actually letting this love in. We understand it intellectually, but we live as if we have to earn it, protect it, or prove we are worth it. Paul is saying that grasping this love requires strength from the Spirit, because our natural tendency is to shrink from it or domesticate it into something manageable. The love of God is too large for us to hold on our own. We need help to receive it.

When a person truly becomes rooted in this love, the fruit that Jesus described all week long becomes natural. Obedience is no longer about avoiding punishment - it is the grateful response of someone who has been loved well. Joy is no longer dependent on circumstances - it is the deep, settled quality that comes from knowing you are fully known and fully loved by the God of the universe. And fruitfulness is no longer something we strain to produce - it is the overflow of a life that is full of what it has been receiving from the vine. This is the picture Jesus is painting. Not a disciplined, white-knuckled religion, but a life so saturated with love that it cannot help but produce good fruit in everyone it touches.

Life Application Exercise
Find a quiet place today and read the Ephesians 3:16-19 passage slowly, as if it were a prayer being prayed specifically over you - because it is. After you read it, sit in silence for a few minutes and ask the Spirit to help you receive what it says. Not to understand it better, but to feel it as true. Let the words rooted and established in love settle into you. If emotions come - gratitude, grief, relief, or something you cannot name - let them. This is not a performance. It is an arrival.

Then think about one person in your life who needs to experience the kind of fruitful, rooted love you have been learning about this week. It might be someone who is struggling, someone who feels far from God, or someone who simply needs to be seen. Consider one small, specific act of love you can offer them today - not to earn anything, not to prove anything, but simply as an overflow of what you have received.

Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for a week of learning what it means to truly know You, to remain in You, to trust Your pruning, to depend on Your vine, and to be rooted in Your love. I do not want to leave this week and go back to straining and performing and living as if You are far away. Let me carry everything I have touched this week into the days ahead. I am Yours, I remain in You, and I trust that You are producing in me what I could never produce on my own.