Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go to this God Tube video link to hear Cliff Barrows leading a Gaither tent revival concert singing Blessed Assurance, proclaiming our story of salvation, which can only come through Christ.
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: 1st Timothy 1: 15-16 [NKJV] …
15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. 16 However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.
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Highlight Passage [Context] – NKJV: 1st Timothy 1: 15-17 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passages #1 John 3: 16 [NKJV] … … You know it!!
Reference Passages #2 Romans 7: 13-25 … Go to this link … Paul recognizes who he is with and without Christ …
Reference Passages #3 Romans 10: 9-13 … Go to this link … Paul recognizes who he is with and without Christ …
My Journal for Today: This morning’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry [see the link below] reminded me of one of the most joyous days in my life. I hope you don’t mind me retelling and reliving that day in my journal entry today.
Some years after I came to know Christ as my Lord and Savior in 1983 I discovered that my dad, who was an Elder in my hometown Presbyterian Church, was – as they would say down here in the American south – as lost as a ball in high weeds. He and my mother both had that common algebraic view of salvation. You know, if you do more good things than bad, God would take you to heaven. So, recognizing their mistaken theological views, I began to witness my faith and my story with them. And my story was one like that sung in today’s linked song (use the link above to hear Blessed Assurance).
Subsequently, I became somewhat depressed as my folks just didn’t seem to get it; but I kept writing letters, mostly to my dad, trying to get him to see what the Apostle Paul finally came to grasp [see the linked Romans passages above] … that He needed to surrender to the saving Grace of His Lord and Savior, Jesus. Well, I couldn’t knock my dad (or mom) off or their high horses of pride like God did for Paul; but I knew that God desired them to be saved; and so I just kept witnessing to them – and above all, praying for them.
Well, in 1988 when my Dad was about my age right now (70+), I got a letter from him, proclaiming that on the previous Sunday, having gone to church, my dad pulled out one of my letters in which I had written out a simple sinner’s prayer. And my father declared that he read that prayer aloud that Sunday morning at home; and he said, in the letter to me, that he knew “something” had changed in him.
Well, over the subsequent weeks and months I saw the change. There was no more fowl language, especially taking God’s Name in vain, which had been so prevalent in my Dad’s vocabulary. There were no more racial jokes. And the anger that my dad had displayed in having to take care of my mom, who was debilitated with heart disease, had disappeared. Now, my dad expressed that he saw that God had given him more time with my mother to minister to her needs. Subsequent to that, literally on her death bed, God also was gracious enough to show me that my mother was saved as well; but that’s too long of a story for here.
I just want anyone who has a lost loved one to realize what the Apostle Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy in the highlight passages above. It is God who saves; and we can only witness His saving love and grace to the ones in our lives who need to see Jesus in our lives and to hear how He has transformed us. So, if you have a lost loved one, you keep witnessing to, and above all praying for, their salvation.
My Prayer for Today … God I know You love my sister; but again I beg You break through in her heart and save her. … 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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