September 4, 2013 … A Paradigm Shift

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 247

Devotional Song: Go to this link ...  Please take in this powerful and pertinent song sung by Steve Green, singing People Need The Lord, exhorting us to break through any human paradigm which keeps us from sharing Christ with others.

Highlight meditation passage – Acts 10: 19-20 [NLT]: …  
19 Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you. 20 Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.”
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Highlight reading study of Acts, Chapters 10: Go to this link … 

Reference Passage #1: Proverbs 3: 5-6 [God moves; we follow = wisdom!] … [NLT] …  
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek His will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.

Reference Passage #1: Proverbs 19: 21 [Our plans = God’s plans = Our Destiny!] … [NLT] …  
21 You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail. 

My Journal for Today: A “PARADIGM” is a set of values, ideals, or forms which set a pattern which guide individuals or groups to make choices or to behave in certain stereotypic ways.

For decades in the 20th century, the Swiss watchmakers had set a paradigm of excellence by making watches in a certain way which – through patents – captured over 90% of the watch-selling market worldwide. Then along came the Japanese and the Texas Instruments Corporation who devised a different way to make watches; and because of this PARADIGM shift to digital watch-making, now the Swiss have less than 10% of the world’s market.

Sometimes it takes a paradigm shift to change the way a world thinks or acts. Certainly as we read

Chapter 10 of the Book of Acts, we read how the Apostle Peter had a definite paradigm involving the way he viewed the world of the Gentiles. And his paradigm would have him avoiding Gentiles because of his Jewish way of interacting or thinking about non-Jews. In Acts 10 (please take the time to use the link above and read the whole chapter), God intervened to use Peter’s surrender to God’s will to lead him to help a Gentile, Cornelius, and his family, as well as all of Cornelius’ community to see the truth of the Gospel and come to a saving relationship with Christ.

Today, Os Hillman’s focus on Peter’s paradigm shift causes me to remember how God broke me down with my paradigm that Christians were all hypocrites. And because of that paradigm about 35 years ago, I was unwilling (and unable) to see Christ for Whom He was/is. But God used a miraculous set of circumstances, much as He did with Simon, who became Peter, or Saul, who became Paul, to break down my paradigm of “Christianity,” allowing me to see Christ and to get my eyes off of Christians.

As Steve Green sings in my devotional song (linked above) for today, People Need The Lord, … i.e., ALL PEOPLE need the Lord, don’t they? So, if we have any paradigms of thinking which cause us to refrain from sharing Christ with ANY person or group of people, we need to pray that God will break through and give us HIS PARADIGM, … allowing His grace to lead us rather than any personal stereotype or paradigm which we might hold, causing us to hold back from sharing Christ with anyone and everyone.

Go listen to the Steve Green song and read Acts, Chapter 10; and then pray, with me, that God will break through any selfishly held paradigm which might cause us to refrain from sharing Christ with the world.

 My Prayer for Today … Lord, if there are any ideas or paradigms of thinking which hold me back from sharing You with anyone, break them now … in Your Name and for Your glory. … Amen