Thursday, March 03, 2016

March 3, 2016: Tell ‘em NOW!

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2016 - Day 63  

Devotional Song:  … GO TO THIS LINK …  Please take the time to take in a video of the group Avalon singing Testify to Love… declaring God’s desire that we testify to His love and mighty works with every breath we take.


Highlight Passage:  Psalm 145:4 [NKJV] …  
4 One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. 
… But do we testify to our progeny of our God?
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Highlight Context – Psalm 145:1-13 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK 
… God’s people charged to share God’s greatness … one generation to another.… No need to fear when God is with us …
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Reference Passage #1 - Deuteronomy 6:4-6 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK 
… Moses charges God’s people to share the word of their Lord with the next generation.

Reference Passage #2 - Deuteronomy, Chapters 31-32 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK 
… Moses just before he died, charged Joshua, the Priests, and the Elders to convey regularly God’s truth and His word to His rebellious people. … And that is our charge as well.

Reference Passage #3 - Acts 1:8 [NKJV] …  
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me[a] in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 
… Jesus, ascending back into heaven after His resurrection charges His disciples (that’s us!) to witness for Him to the world.

My Journal for Today:  Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Poh Fang Chia, used a personal story to illustrate how how God has charged us to share His Story (i.e., His truth) with our family and His family (the world). He wrote: Many families have a secret recipe, a special way of cooking a dish that makes it especially savory. For us Hakkas (my Chinese ethnic group), we have a traditional dish called abacus beads [see photo], named for its beadlike appearance. Really, you have to try it! … Of course Grandma had the best recipe. Each Chinese New Year at the family reunion dinner we would tell ourselves, “We should really learn how to cook this.” But we never got around to asking Grandma. Now she is no longer with us, and her secret recipe is gone with her. … God has designed us to enjoy family and community and to benefit from each other. We miss Grandma, and it’s sad to lose her recipe. It would be far more tragic if we were to fail to preserve the legacy of faith entrusted to us. 

All of us can likely relate to the ODB author today. Perhaps you can remember a family recipe which you loved; and maybe it was shared down through the generations; … perhaps not. However, God intended that His greatness and glory would be shared down through His chosen peoples and then onward, through the wonders of the Messiah, with all peoples.

The question which I’m dealing with this morning is … Am I doing all I can to testify to God’s love to my family, my friends, and especially to those who need the saving grace of my Lord, and Savior, Jesus? 

Am I sharing the wonders of my Lord to my grandkids, … and through my life to others? Am I doing what the group Avalon sings about in today’s linked devotional song (above). Perhaps we all should ask and answer these provocative questions … which really come from God, Himself, through His word to all who believe in Him.

My Prayer Today:  Heavenly Father, … give me an appointment to share You today with someone who needs Your love. … 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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