Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go this video link to hear the group, Phillips, Craig, and Dean singing, I Choose To Believe, reminding all Christians that we must humble ourselves and choose to believe especially when things seem to be out of control, humbly holding on to the search for God’s ways over our own ways..
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: Jeremiah 9: 23-24 [NKJV] …
23 Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; 24 but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. for in these I delight,” says the LORD.
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Highlight Passage [Context] #1 – NKJV: Jeremiah 9: 23-26 [NKJV] … Go to this link … http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+9%3A+23-26&version=NKJV =============
Reference Passages #1: 1st Corinthians 3: 18-23 [NKJV] … Go to this link … Paul gives warning to avoid the wisdom of the world and to humbly seek out the wisdom of God.
Reference Passages #2: James 4: 6-10 [NKJV] … Go to this link … James quotes Prov. 3: 34 in a warning about the evils of pride in the soul of mankind.
Reference Passages #3: 1st Peter 5: 5-7 [NKJV] … Go to this link … Peter also invokes Prov. 3: 34 in his warning for Christians to avoid pride and adopt humility.
My Journal for Today: From how many different authors does God have to send the same message for us to get it? Well, the Our Daily Bread devotional entry for today hammers home one point I need to keep hearing over and over again; and that is that ”pride goeth before a fall.”
Today I was reminded of this from no less than five different Scripture writers – Jeremiah and Solomon in the Old Testament and then Paul, James, and Peter from the New Covenant writings. And the message is simple: … to avoid pride and embrace humility. Well, duh! I think most Christians know, as Solomon wrote in the oft-quoted proverb: ”God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (Prov. 3: 34) But how many of us live out that truth in our everyday lives?
It’s a message that keeps being drilled into my awareness over and over again; and so, … I get the picture, God! … I need to hear it!! And I do; because one of my primary human weaknesses is my desire to be seen by other humans as competent or of worth; and it’s nothing other than my default weakness of pride. But I think my weakness is shared by all humans, going all the way back to Adam and Eve.
Am I right, or what?!!
And that’s why this mirror of truth from God’s word, the message of Proverbs 3: 34, is repeated by so many different voices from God in Scripture. And if we don’t get it, the outcomes are clear. Because God’s ultimate model of humility showed the way (see Philippians 2: 5-11). Jesus was the hallmark of humility and the absence of pride; and Paul in Phil. 2: 5 said that we must become like our Savior; and if we don’t, the message is simple and clear - we will fall! But if we do, the message is also clear - we will be raised up.
Personally, as today’s song link points me, I choose to believe God’s word and to pursue the latter!
My Prayer for Today … Lord, I know it’s a dangerous prayer; but help me to be humble. … 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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