Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go to this God Tube video link to hear Big Daddy Weave singing Redeemed, proclaiming the reality that becoming a new person in Christ is a process of complete restoration.
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: Colossians 3: 8-10 [NKJV] …
8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, …
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Highlight Passage [Context] – NKJV: Colossians 3: 8-17 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passages #1 Psalm 107: 1-2 [NKJV] … Let the redeemed of the Lord say so … Go to this link …
Reference Passages #3 2nd Corinthians 5: 17 …
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
My Journal for Today: Yesterday from my Our Daily Bread [ODB] devotional (see this link ), I wrote of how my dad was changed so radically when he finally accepted Christ as his Lord at age 72. The Apostle Paul experienced that kind of restoration process when he was redeemed by Christ on that road to Damascus, being transformed from a radical persecutor of Christians into one who changed the world with his Christian teachings and evangelism.
You can certainly read of this radical transformation when he wrote of the change which comes when someone is redeemed by Christ in the highlight passages from Colossians 3 and 2nd Corinthians 5 quoted/linked above. In fact, I can testify personally of this process of redemptive restoration in the change which took place in my life as I became a “poster-boy” for that 2nd Cor. 5: 17 passage, becoming a new creature when I was saved in 1983. I was transformed from one who doggedly and compulsively pursued pornography to one now who is here everyday [and has been for many years] doggedly and compulsively pursuing to know God through His word. Yes, I was transformed from an avowed atheist to one who is now Ordained as a Minister of the Gospel. Only the blood of Jesus can do something like that with the Apostle Paul or the one who writes these words today.
My guess is that no matter how or when you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have a story of the effect this redemption has had on your life. Some of you may have stories of the slow process of sanctification which took place over the years, you having been saved at a very young age, perhaps even in childhood. Others, like the Apostle Paul (and yours truly) may have a story of radical transformation which took place when, in faith, you (we) surrendered your (our) life – in faith – believing in and declaring of the saving and transforming grace of Jesus’ blood-bought sacrifice [see Romans 10: 9-13].
But a transformation or metamorphosis will always take place when someone is, as Big Daddy Weave sings in today’s linked song, REDEEMED. And if it took place as it did for me or my earthly father (or the Apostle Paul), others will see the change; and it will be like Paul wrote about to the Colossians or to the Corinthians (see passages above). And if you’re one of those, as am I, we need to go out and share our story of redemption and restoration with all who’ll listen.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, let me tell of Your redemption of my life. … 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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