July 27, 2013 … Pressing On For God’s Glory

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 208

Devotional Song: Go to this link   … If you’re reading here with me, please use this link and hear a song sung by the group Selah, singing “Press On”, exhorting Christians, in the face of daily challenges in our work and our lives … find the strength to press on.

Highlight Passage of the Day: Philippians 3: 12-14 [No matter where God has planted us, we press on!] … [NLT] …  
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.
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Contextual Study involving today’s passage found in Philippians, Chapter 3 … Go to this link … 
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Reference Passage of the Day #1: Romans 12: 1-2 [Our life is our living sacrifice – for His glory.] … [NLT] …  
1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

Reference Passage of the Day #2: Philippians 2: 6-8 [Even Jesus put in His prep time before His time of ministry.] … [NLT] …
6 Though He was God, He did not demand and cling to His rights as God. 7He made himself nothing; He took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. 8 And in human form He obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross.

My Journal for Today: Wherever God has planted or led us in our every day work-a-day world, it may seem like a drag. And do you wonder whether God has somehow made a mistake with us, placing or allowing us to be where we are? Well, if that’s your current (or your past) plight, I hope you realize that we’re not alone when we consider the history of God’s chosen ones.

 Moses worked for 40 years as a shepherd out in the deserts of Midian, with God prepping him for his later-life of ministry for God’s glory. Joshua was led by God and Moses to wonder, along with God’s people, for 40 years in the wilderness in preparation for his leadership of God’s people into the Promised Land. And then there was Jesus, … Who, being God, yet was humbled as a man to serve 30 years as an apprentice carpenter, being prepped by His Heavenly Father to humbly serve in ministry to all mankind, marching in ministry, day-by-day for three years, to the cross [see the Philippians 2 passage above].

Yes, God has planted us where we are; or He has put us through what we’ve experience as Christians, for a reason; and we may have wondered what God is doing or why He’s doing it the way we’re experiencing life; but Paul nailed it clearly in Romans 8: 28 that “… all things work together for good … for those who’re are the called according to His purposes.”

So, when we feel down as to where we are or why we got to the place in life where we are, … what is all of this saying to us? Well, if you’ve listened to Selah’s wonderful song, linked above, and you’ve internalized the highlight scripture passage today from Philippians 3, copied above, God is exhorting us to PRESS ON, isn’t He? We are where we are and we’re doing what we’re doing for a reason? What we need to do is to press on to find out where God is leading us and to do what we’re doing as a “living sacrifice” in worship of His Holy Name and for His glory [see Romans 12: 1-2 above]. And if we press on for His glory, He will lead us to the prize which awaits us in glory.

My Prayer for Today … So, my Lord, I press on!! … Amen