Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go this video link to hear the group, Third Day, singing the old hymn Blessed Assurance, which reminds all believers that we can have assurance of spending eternity with Christ, lost in His love, … IF … and only if … we have received His saving grace by faith in His shed blood on Calvary.
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: Hebrews 4: 1 and 11 [NKJV] …
1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. …
11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
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Highlight Passage [Context] #1 – NKJV: Hebrews 4: 1-11 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passages #1: Matthew 7: 21-23 [NKJV] … Go to this link … Jesus warned His followers that there will be some – actually many – who even called Him “Lord” who will not be recognized at the final judgment because they had not completely surrendered their will to His …
Reference Passages #2: Romans 10: 9-13 [NKJV] … Go to this link … God through the Apostle Paul gives the final formula for salvation and the opportunity to receive God’s saving grace and spend eternity with Him …
My Journal for Today: Today, from my Our Daily Bread devotional entry, I was reminded of a dream I used to have while in school, both college and grad school. I dreamed that I was just about to receive my diploma and graduate; but I got a notice from the school officials that I had missed one class, and it was always a French class for some reason; and because I missed out on that registered class, I would not graduate. And many times I would awake in a sweat imagining that I had not gotten my degree because of my oversight.
You know, ... that dream is much like the proclamation of the author of Hebrews [see Hebrews, Chapter 4 linked above]; because this writer was trying to get his fellow Jews to realize that they would miss out on Heaven if they had not chosen, by their obedient submission in faith to Christ, to believe and be obedient to Christ’s finished work on the cross. And we know that Christ proclaimed that message to His followers as well with his strong pronouncement in Matthew 7: 21-23 … that in the final day of judgment, many would come before Him and be rejected – even some who called Him “LORD” – because they had truly surrendered and received His saving grace in faith.
That’s why I love the old hymn, Blessed Assurance, linked for you to hear above, with those strong lyrics of promise for all who have truly received God’s saving grace by surrendering fully – in faith - to His Lordship and finished work on the cross. My dear fellow reader, God gave the absolute formula for salvation and eternal life in Heaven when the Apostle instructed potential Christians what it takes to be saved [see Romans 10: 9-13]. So, not wanting to assume that any who read here might miss out on glory by not conforming to that formula for the assurance of salvation, I plea that any who read here with me have believed in your heart that Jesus’ finished work on Calvary was your ticket into heaven and knowing of your sin and surrendering to Christ’s will, you have received Him into your heart as your Lord and Savior and you have declared that openly to others.
Because if you have done that, and you live in obedience to Christ as your Lord, you – as do I – have the blessed assurance of eternity with Christ. … Glory, GLORY, GLORY!!!
My Prayer for Today … Thank You, Lord, for the blessed assurance that I am saved and will spend eternity with You. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread [TGIF], distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you’ll find a link to read the Our Daily Bread blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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