Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of Morgan Cryar singing, What Sin?, … declaring the truth that God - somehow - never sees our sin once we confess, repent, and let Jesus take it all, covering it with His blood.
Highlight Passage: 1st Samuel 16: 7 [NKJV] …
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
… David chosen as King because God sees His heart.
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Highlight Context – 1st Samuel 17: 1-7 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Samuel learns to look inside a man rather than at the outside appearance.
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Reference Passage #1 - 2nd Chronicles 6: 29-30 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … God alone knows the hearts of His children.
Reference Passage #2 - 1st John 1: 9 [NKJV] …
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.
… Did you get that … ALL … unrighteousness!!
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Jennifer Benson Schuldt, today’s ODB author, uses an artistic illustration for her teaching. She writes, … Retired physicist Arie van’t Riet creates works of art in an unusual way. He arranges plants and deceased animals in various compositions and then x-rays them. He scans the developed x-rays into a computer and then adds color to certain parts of his pictures. His artwork reveals the inner complexity of flowers, fish, birds, reptiles, and monkeys. … An inside view of something is often more fascinating and more significant than an exterior view.
But in reality, only God can see the inside of our personhood; and often in doing so, He sees far more beauty or strength that we can see in others by looking at the outer physical qualities. That was certainly the case when God instructed Samuel to select the young shepherd, David, over David’s older brother, who had all the outer looks of a king (see today’s highlight passage from 1st Samuel linked above). God saw in David a “man after God’s own heart,” something Samuel or others certainly couldn’t see.
When God looks into the hearts of man, as only He can (see 2nd Chronicles 6: 30), God can - and often does - see things that others can’t see … or even we can’t see in ourselves. That’s why God can reach down into the heart of a repentant sinner and see something of great value when that sinner can’t even see it in himself/herself.
That was the case with me, when, years ago, I was deeply wrought in obsessive/compulsive sin. But God, with His perfect X-RAY vision (see the photo attached), saw some beauty in my soul that I was not able to see back then; and when I confessed and repented of my sin (see 1st John 1: 9), surrendering to Jesus as my Lord, as Morgan Cryar sings in his song, What Sin?, God forgave me and set me on a course to show what I had in myself which could/would glorify Him.
And God can - and WILL - do that for anyone who has, as did David, a heart for our Lord.
My Prayer Today: Oh, my Lord, Jesus! … Thank You for seeing in me what I could give to others in Your Name. … 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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