Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go this video link to hear Phillips, Craig, and Dean singing his powerful song I Choose To Believe, expressing my faith to believe, even when others to discount the validity of the Book of Truth, the Bible.
=============
Highlight Passage – NKJV: Matthew 12: 40 [NKJV] …
40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Highlight Passage [Context] #1 – NKJV: Matthew 12: 38-42 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
=============
Highlight Passage – NKJV: Matthew 24: 37 [NKJV] …
37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. …
Highlight Passage [Context] #2 – NKJV: Matthew 24: 32-44 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
=============
Reference Passages #1 Genesis 7: 1 [NKJV] …
1 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.
Reference Passages #2 Jonah 1: 17 [NKJV] …
17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Reference Passages #3 ... 2nd Peter 2: 4-5 …
4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly …
My Journal for Today: About 35 years ago, when I chose to label myself as an “agnostic” and cynically attacked the faith of well-meaning Christians, I discounted many of the stories in the Bible, like those involving Noah or Jonah as fairy tales, … wonderful fables which illustrated moral truths. And like the attached photo, I chose to deny the truth of such stories as children’s stories and render them as cartoon-like stories for kids.
But then, after my encounter with the real Truth, … Jesus, … where my mind and heart were transformed in my brokenness to belief in Christ, I began to see these “once upon a time” stories from the Bible, like the ones of Noah and the flood and Jonah and the big fish, as history and God’s relating of HIS STORY (i.e., “history”). Because to discount these stories as fables or mythical tales would be to render Jesus’ use of these stories [see the links above] or the Apostle Peter’s rendition of Noah’s story [see the reference from 2nd Peter 2 above] as null and void.
Jesus and Peter used these stories to illustrate God’s truths or prophetic realities, like the second coming, because the stories were historical truths, accepted by the people to whom these men related, … One God Himself. As the song, linked for your meditation above, sings, I choose to believe these stories as truth; because these stories tell of God’s greatness and His pointing to the reality that His Son, … my Savior, … is coming again and He will save all those who now come to him believing as I do.
And just as God saved Jonah from the fish and Noah from the flood, … so He has saved me. … How about you?
My Prayer for Today … Lord, those of us who choose to believe in Noah and Jonah, and more importantly, Jesus, are here with thankful hearts for Your salvation. … 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment