Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please go this video link to hear group, Hillsong, singing Jesus, You’re All I Need, reminding all who love God of the simplicity which is wrapped up in God loving us and our need to love Him.
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Highlight Passage - Mark 12: 28 [NKJV] …
28 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”
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Highlight Passage [Context] - Matthew 11: 28-30 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK
Reference Passage #1 - Matthew 11: 28-30 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK
Reference Passage #2 … 1st Peter 5: 7 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK
My Journal for Today: In this morning’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, the author, Bill Crowder, used an interesting comparison of today’s IRS rulebook with the laws established by the Levitical priests. His point was that fallen mankind has a tendency to take something very simple and muck it up with complexity.
All one has to do is look at our U.S. tax code with over 4 million words to see how complex we’ve made the law for taxation in this country. And in comparison … by the time Jesus came to us, the 1st Century Jewish priesthood had made God’s Law so complex, overlaid with human legalism, that even the Priests found it impossible to follow, let alone live by it.
In today’s highlight passage [see Mark 12: 29], Jesus was challenged by a priestly religious leader and asked what Jesus considered most important from God’s Law; and The Lord didn’t hesitate, quoting from the Jewish “Shema,” which was/is found in our Deuteronomy 6: 4 reference; and this illustrates how simple Jesus considered THE LAW to be rather than the complexity of the Levitical laws the religious leaders of the day and in the had created.
As any reader with me here can gather, Jesus’ way is really quite simple. And He even told His disciples just how simple any disciple of His would find life’s path if they were to follow Him (see Luke 9: 23, which I hope you know by heart now as often as I refer to the passage). Now, I’m not saying that following Jesus by denying self is EASY.
Far from it, being a disciple of Christ is very, VERY difficult; but it IS always quite simple. So, once again, I hope any reading with me are as challenged to see if we’re doing what Jesus said in Matthew 11: 28-30 or what Peter exhorted in 1st Peter 5: 7; because, as Hillsong sings in the song linked above, Jesus Is All I [WE] Need.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, though I so often make life so complex; help me to recognize that You’re all I need. ... Amen
Blogger Note: Every day 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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