Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of Queen Latifah singing a song from the movie “Joyful Noise” … Fix Me Jesus, … with a prayer for Jesus to make us over into His image to prepare us for His glory.
Highlight Passage: 2nd Corinthians 5: 17 [NKJV] …
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
… Brand new!!!
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Highlight Context – 2nd Corinthians 5: 14-21 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… In Christ we are being made over into HIS image.
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Reference Passage #1 - Romans 12: 1-2 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Make over into a living sacrifice, proving that we are new in Christ.
Reference Passage #2 - Philippians 1: 6 [NKJV] …
6 … being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; …
… God’s Spirit … making us over into the image of our Savior.
Reference Passage #3 - Colossians 3: 12-13 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… The character of the new man (or woman) … in Christ.
Reference Passage #4 - 1st Peter 1: 13-16 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Peter exhorting the church to be holy as they were recreated in the image of THE HOLY One, … Jesus, their Messiah.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Dave Branon, uses a personal illustration to teach about becoming who we are in Christ. He writes, It was time to fix the trim on the windows of our house. So I scraped, sanded, and applied wood filler to get the aging trim ready for paint. After all of my efforts—including a coat of primer and some too-expensive paint—the trim looks, well, pretty good. But it doesn’t look new. The only way to make the trim look new would be to replace the old wood. … It’s okay to have weather-damaged window trim that looks “pretty good” to our eye. But when it comes to our sin-damaged hearts, it’s not enough to try to fix things up. From God’s point of view, we need all things to become new ( see 2nd Cor. 5:17).
How often do we, as born-again Christians, try to put on a mask of self-control or to put on some paint to cover over some really rotten wood on the inside? Too often, I would guess!
When we become a Christian (I mean FOR REAL!), we are what Paul wrote about to the Christians in Corinth (again, see the highlight passage above). We are new, leaving the old behind; and God’s Spirit desires to make us over into the image of Christlikeness (see Phil. 1:6). He desires, as Peter wrote in 1st Peter 1:13-16, linked above, to live on the inside as well as the outside, … as Christ called us to live … in holiness.
Now, it’s true that the Heavenly Father sees all born-again Christians in the image of His Son, Who paid the price of our make-over on the cross. But we still must live as Paul exhorted the Church [see Romans 12: 1-2 and Colossians 3:12-13]; and we must pray as Queen Latifah so poignantly sings, for Jesus to fix us and make us over in His image day by day. … Not just a paint job on the outside; but on the inside too.
My Prayer Today: Oh, my Lord, Jesus! … Fix me, Jesus, … fix me! … 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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