Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of images from Daniel O’Donnell singing the song, pertinent and poignant for us all, Here I Am, Lord reminding all whenever God calls us to help others, we must answer the call for as long as God leads us to reach out and helps others
Highlight Passage: 1st Corinthians 12: 26 [NKJV] …
26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
… When one member of the body suffers the entire body suffers.
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Highlight Context – 1st Corinthians 12: 26 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… We are all part of the Body of Christ … all bound together in the unity of His blood.
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Reference Passage #1 - Luke 9: 23 [NKJV] …
8 Then He (Jesus) said to them (a large crowd following Jesus), … “If anyone would follow Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
… And “retirement,” as the world sees it, is not part of His plan
Reference Passage #2 - Philippians 2: 3-4 [NKJV] …
3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
… And there’s no age limit on that call to humble service, is there?
Reference Passage #3- Ephesians 4: 7-16 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… All members of Christ’s body work together in unity for the edification and health of the body of Christ.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Julie Ackerman Link, related a story of an older Christian Dentist, Dr. Dave Bowman, who was led to sponsor several young boys from Sudan as he was contemplating retirement and more leisure in his life. But the sponsoring of these boys in Sudan, let the Dentist to realize that these boys and their Sudanese compatriots had never had any medical/dental care. So responding to conviction and direction from today’s highlight Scripture (see 1 Cor. 12: 26), Dr. Bowman began putting together the resources and founded the Memorial Christian Hospital in Sudan in 2008, which now treats hundreds of Sudanese natives daily (see attached photo).
The later-year status of “retirement” is a goal for which many people save and invest … and have as a goal in life to live the “good life.” And often a more leisure lifestyle is contemplated in that goal. Writing here and now, well over 70 years of age, I used to think about retirement; but after I became a Christian at age 40, while I was working as Director of many clinics in a government hospital, I came to realize that God was calling me to cofound a ministry to help men walk away from the bondage of pornography and sexual sin, which had become [and still is] a social plague in the world and even in Christ’s Church.
And so, … rather than looking at leaving my hospital career in “retirement,” I viewed it as a “commencement;” and now almost 15 years after co-founding Battle Plan Ministries [see www.battleplanministries.org ] with my wife, we still work together to help Christians, individually and in marriages, to deal with the life-changing work of redemption, restoration, and renewal which can be found in the Holy Spirit’s work to reshape all Christians into the image of our Savior and Lord, Jesus.
I hope, if you’re headed down the road of life, … maybe getting up in years, you find a way to use your Spirit-given gifts which will allow you to work in/for the kingdom of God until our Lord decides to take us all home to be with Him, … having given God glory to Him by using our gifts and talents for all the years of our later lives.
My Prayer Today: Oh, my Lord, … I move onward and prayerfully upward in the work You have led me to do for Your glory. … 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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