Friday, January 23, 2015

January 23, 2015 … The Race of Life

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2015 - Day 23

Devotional Song: ... Go to this link  … Please take the time to take in a video of my friend Clay Crosse and two of his friends, Bob Carlisle and Bebe Winans singing the poignant song … I Will Follow Christ, … rI will run the race to the end - FOLLOWING MY LORD, CHRIST!!


Highlight Passage Philippians 3: 13-14 [NKJV] …
  13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 
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Highlight Context - Philippians 3:12-21 [NKJV]USE THIS LINK
… Exhortation from Paul to pursue the goal of heaven, won for us by Christ, running the race of life to the end … for God's glory!!
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Reference Passage #1: 1st Corinthians 9: 24-27 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK
… Paul uses the word picture of running a race to win the prize as a metaphor for life …

Reference Passage #2: 2nd Timothy 4: 7-8 [NKJV] … 
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. 
… Paul, at the end of his life, realized and proclaimed how he had run the race …

My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Randy Kilgore, reminded the ODB readers (me) of a word picture the Apostle Paul often used about our running the race of life [see the 1st Cor. 9, Phil. 3, and 2nd Tim. passages above]. Paul’s analogy was of a runner training for and then running a race … to win; … and Kilgore in today’s ODB depicts our life as such a race.

 I’ll let you use the link below [see "Blogger Note" below] to the ODB devotional, … to read what Kilgore wrote and then take in the song to which I’ve linked readers above today to realize that we must run the race of life with our eyes fixed on the end goal, as Paul wrote about in Philippians 3: 13-14, … that goal being heaven. So, as Paul also exhorted, we must ask ourselves, … are we running the race for Christ to win and to honor our Lord in the process?

 Oh, Lord, how I pray that I’m running the race with my eyes fixed on the goal of winning for Jesus!!

My Prayer for Today O Lord, … I prepare and run this race with you and for You everyday. … 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, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.

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