Devotional Song: Go to this link – Please take your time to see a video of a telling song performed by Phillips, Craig, and Dean, singing He’ll Do Whatever It Takes, reminding us that God’s grace and His desire to reshape us into His image has no boundaries of failure in our lives.
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Highlight Passage - NLT: 1st Thessalonians 5: 23-24
23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.
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Highlight Passage: 1st Thessalonians, Chapter 5, Verses 12-28… GO TO THIS LINK … [NLT]
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Reference Passage #1: Philippians 1: 6 … … [NLT]
6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Reference Passage #2: Romans 8: 28 … … [NLT]
28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
My Journal for Today: This morning to illustrate a point, Os Hillman tells a personal story of how he and some companions in a wilderness experience trekked for three days through a dense forest with only a compass to guide them and barely enough provisions to get to their destination; but they made it safely back to their base camp. And after they had arrived safely, the men climbed to higher ground and, as in the attached photo, looked back over where they had traversed. And having the 20/20 perspective of height and experience, their journey didn’t look scary at all. However, during their 3-day experience, there were serious doubts as to whether they would make it or not.
Life’s like that, isn’t it? We go through a really tough time in our lives; and having come through the episode, where we may have experienced a lot of doubts, confusion, and maybe even pain, we can view the experience as a God-led transformational time in our lives, making us stronger and more empathetic with others who go through tough times where we can, later, with experience, help others who’re going through tough times with our 20/20 hindsight.
But going through the tough times as Christians, it can be faith testing; and that’s what the Apostle Paul was addressing as he wrote the passages above which were highlighted by Hillman’s devotional and others which came to my mind where the Apostle Paul also wrote to Christians who were going through some very tough times. And Paul, having traversed even tougher times himself, had the 20/20 hindsight of experience and Spirit-led perspective to be able to encourage his fellow Christians to stay with their trek of Christlikeness and honor God with their faithfulness.
How about it, fellow Christian, do we really believe the truth of these Pauline passages above? Can we rise above our tough times and stay the course of following Christ? … Well, my friend, I believe the truth of these passages, especially Romans 8: 28; and my prayer today will reflect my desire to do what is symbolized in this expression – “ <'KOKO>< " – i.e., to “keep on keeping on in Christ!”
My Prayer for Today … Lord, shine Your light brightly and give me the perspective of Your word to light my path. as you promise in Ps. 119: 105, so that I can faithfully stay on Your path. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online blog entitled Today God Is First [TGIF], authored by Os Hillman. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you’ll find a link to read Hillman’s TGIF blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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