Devotional Songs: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of the group Avalon singing Orphans of God … that in the family of God there are none abandoned or orphaned; and THEN TO THIS LINK to hear Susan Boyle singing You’ll Never Walk Alone, which is so true when one knows Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Highlight Passage John 16: 32 [ESV] …
You will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
… Jesus prediction of being abandoned by His disciples, yet He knew that He was never alone because of His triune relationship with His Heavenly Father.
============
Highlight Context - Mark 14: 32-50 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus, already being abandoned by those who’ve followed Him for 3 years … yet He knew that His Pappa God would be with Him through His upcoming passion.
============
Reference Passage #1 - Deuteronomy 31: 6-8 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK
… Moses encourages God’s people as they are about to cross over into the Promised land
Reference Passage #2 - Proverbs 3: 5-6 [ESV] …
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.
… Trust and obey … there’s no other way!
Reference Passage #3 - Isaiah 53: 6 [ESV] …
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; … we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the Lord as laid on HIM the iniquity of us all.
… No matter where we stray on our own, He will be with/for those who believe in Him.
Reference Passage #4 - John 15: 13-15 [ESV] …
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
… I need never fear … JESUS is my friend!
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Poh Fang Chia, tells of a friend, having many friends, yet feeling alone. Chia writes: A friend struggling with loneliness posted these words on her Facebook page: “It’s not that I feel alone because I have no friends. I have lots of friends. I know that I have people who can hold me and reassure me and talk to me and care for me and think of me. But they can’t be with me all the time—for all time.”
As the attached photo depicts, one can have “friends,” but still feel very alone; and even Jesus, in His humanity, must’ve felt a sense of abandonment from His very own inner Disciples when He was ignored in Gethsemane (see Mark 14 linked above); or especially when so many of His discipled bolted and ran, especially Peter, when He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. And then there was the horror and injustice of His trial and crucifixion; but through it all Jesus knew that His Heavenly Father would ultimately take Him back, … which God, the Father, certainly did after the resurrection.
And if any reading here are feeling a bit lonely or abandoned in the midst of many who call us “a friend,” let us realize the truth of Deuteronomy 31: 6-8 [linked above] or Isaiah 53: 6 or Proverbs 3: 5-6 … for we Christians must KNOW that all who trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, have a FRIEND Who will never leave us or abandon us.
Done deal … on the cross! Finished!! He is our friend FOREVER! And being friends with Jesus covers all the worries of the world; because He will watch over those who are His friends, … again, … FOREVER (see John 15: 13-15).
My Prayer Today: Oh Lord, … what a friend I have in You, my God! 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment