Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go this video link to hear one amazing voice singing an acapella arrangement of the classic hymn I Need Thee Every Hour, reminding us that we, as Christians, are totally dependent up the One who sacrificed His all for us … and THEN TO THIS LINK to hear the Maranatha Choir singing another classic, “Abide With Me declaring the truth that we need to abide in/with our Savior every hour of every day.
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: John 15: 4-5 [NKJV] …
4 “… Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. … 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. …”
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Highlight Passage [Context] – NKJV: John 15: 1-13 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passages #1 Psalm 25 [NKJV] … Go to this link … Total dependence on God was David’s power …
Reference Passages #2 Proverbs 1: 7 [NKJV] …
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Reference Passages #3 Luke 9: 23 [NKJV] … [Oh, how I pray you have memorized and internalized this one!]
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me….”
Reference Passages #4 John 8: 31-32 [NKJV] … [Do you realize that “The Truth” is not just a value? … It is also a Person; and His Name is Jesus! … Remember what He said, (in John 14:6, … “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”]
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Reference Passages #5 Acts 17: 28a [NKJV] … [Total dependence on Christ is total freedom from self!]
28 … for in Him we live and move and have our being, …
My Journal for Today: I don’t mean to offend any of my international friends who are reading here with me; but today is a big day here in the USofA. It’s “Independence Day,” … a day when we, formerly British colonist Americans, celebrate our independence from the Brits, which was codified in our American “Declaration of Independence.”
HOWEVER, for any Christian reading here – no matter what nationality; and that’s probably all of you, perhaps we should realize and recognize that EVERYDAY is “Dependence Day” when it comes to our relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And nowhere in Scripture is this dependency described more clearly than in a portion of Jesus’ upper room discourse – i.e., in the highlight passage linked above in John 15: 1-13 - where our Lord describe how Christian disciples must become “the branches” of “the vine,” Who is Christ. In other words, we must become totally dependent upon Our LORD for all of whom we are and are to become.
In this post-modern, increasingly non-Christian culture, total personal freedom – i.e., INDEPENDENCE – has become a hallmark social value of the 21st century American. Therefore, today, on this July 4th – though the holiday has historical roots – American’s are also likely celebrating their own – very selfish – attempt to be and live totally independently in this world.
But I hope all who read here as Christians might celebrate today as “DEPENDENCE DAY” … celebrating our total dependence on the One Who gave His all so that we could be set free from our selves. But to realize that freedom, we must become slaves to the One Who broke the bondage of death so that we, in our surrender of faith, could be freed from that bondage of selfishness and sin and become totally free in Christ.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, I celebrate my freedom in my slavery to You. … 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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