Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go this video link to hear the group Phillips, Craig, and Dean singing the first of two songs, He’ll Do Whatever It Takes, which tells the plaintive truth that God’s grace extends to the most broken of us; and God will do what it takes to lift us up in our brokenness; … and then to this link to hear the group sing Your Grace Still Amazes Me where we can revel in God’s AMAZING GRACE which is extended to any who humbly come to receive it.
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: Matthew 8: 2 [NKJV] …
2 And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”
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Highlight Passage [Context] #1 – NKJV: Matthew 8: 1-4 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Highlight Passage #2 – NKJV: 2nd Corinthians 12: 8-9 [NKJV] …
8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
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Highlight Passage [Context] #2 – NKJV: 2nd Corinthians 12: 7-10 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passages #1: Lamentations 3: 22-23 [NKJV] … Go to this link … where Jeremiah provides believers with a clear picture of God’s mercies, which are new every morning; and the declaration that God is always faithfully willing to extend these mercies. …
Reference Passage #2 : Romans 8: 28 [NKJV] …
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Reference Passage #3 : 1st Corinthians 10: 13 [NKJV] …
13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
My Journal for Today: “Mayday!! Mayday!!” is the cry of planes or ships which are out of control and in need of rescue; and today happens to be May Day, the first of May, as I’ve gone to my Our Daily Bread devotional published for this date. And from this May first blog, I was led to one story, from Matthew 8: 1-4, where Jesus was confronted with a Leper who desperately desired the healing touch that this “untouchable” believed could heal his incurable condition. And it did!
And then my own past brokenness caused me to realize and remember the second highlight scenario, where the Apostle Paul was stricken with a very painful “thorn,” about which he prayed and prayed and prayed to be healed. And the recollection of these two stories helped me to realize the truth of the three reference scriptures which bubbled up from my memory; and it’s the reality that in God’s faithfulness to those who believe in Him, the Lord doesn’t always take away the physical or emotional maladies under which we suffer.
Yes, sometimes He heals the malady; as Christ did with the Leper in Matthew 8; but in His faithfulness and amazing grace, sometimes God chooses not to take away the suffering or the physical symptoms which cause emotional pain, as the Lord did when Paul was faced with that horribly painful “thorn” in 2nd Cor. 12: 7-10. But in both scenarios we must realize the fact that God’s mercy and His grace are at work in both stories, calling us to be challenged in faith to recognize and internalize the truth of Romans 8: 28, probably one of the most difficult scriptures to hold onto in the face of physical or emotional pain.
So, perhaps today you’re feeling the brokenness of life’s circumstances; and you’d desperately desire to be healed as the Leper was in Matt. 8. Perhaps you feel like the young man in the attached photo, the need to be lifted up by the loving arms of our Savior. Or maybe you’d like to experience what Phillips, Craig, and Dean sing about in the two songs to which I’ve linked readers today. But no matter where we are - even if we’re crying “Mayday, … Mayday!!!” - God is always there to hold us up … maybe to heal us … maybe to carry us.
But no matter the circumstances, they are meant to provide us with the grace we need to go on and to deal with the challenges of life [see 1st Cor. 10: 13 above].
My Prayer for Today … Yes, Lord, Your grace always amazes me – even when I have trouble seeing or felling it. … 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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