Saturday, October 01, 2016

October 1, 2016: Holding On To Jesus

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2016 - Day 275 

Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK …   Please take the time to take in a You Tube video of Cece Winans and Andre Crouch leading a Gaither gathering in worship and singing… Through It All, poignantly declaring how we, as Christians, must trust and hold on to Jesus no matter what we face.


Highlight Passage: Philippians 4:1 [NKJV] …
1 Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved.
… Through it all, we must hold on to our Lord and stand fast in Christ.
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Highlight Passage: Philippians 3:12-4:1 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … God, thru Paul, teaches how we must hold on dearly to Christ as we traverse this life.
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Reference Passage #1 … Proverbs 3:5-6 [NKJV] … 
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 keep your paths straight. 
… Whom do we trust in life, anyway?

Reference Passage #2 … 1st Corinthians 10:13 [NKJV] … 
13 No temptation [trial, test, trouble, or tribuiation] has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. 
… Through it all in life, God will always be there for His faithful ones to help them bear up under that trials of life.

Reference Passage #2 … 2Peter 1:2-4 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … Peter learned that God gives us the way to proceed and deal with life.

My Journal for Today: … Our Daily Bread author, Albert Lee, an ODB Staffer from Singapore, used a word picture of a famous cable car in China to illustrate how we must hold fast to our relationship with Christ. He wrote: Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, China, is considered one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. To view its towering cliffs in all their glorious splendor, you must take the Tianmen Shan cable car [see attached photo], which covers a distance of 7,455 meters (4.5 miles). It’s amazing how this cable car can travel such long distances and scale such steep mountains without any motor on the car itself. Yet it moves safely up these spectacular heights by keeping a strong grip on a cable that is moved by a powerful motor. 
Like the cable car, we keep a strong grip on Christ, which is what Paul meant when he said “stand firm in the Lord” (Phil 4:1). We have no resources of our own. We depend fully on Christ to keep us moving forward. He will take us through the greatest challenges and lead us safely home. 

I pray any reader here with me has taken in the linked song, this ODB message and the Scripture provided today; because I know we can all identify with the image which the ODB Author used to illustrate the Scriptures provided today.

Yes, all Christians traverse the steep mountains of life, knowing that we must hold on firmly to our relationship with Christ to let Him carry us upward and onward. Perhaps some here today are trying to get up some mountain or through some trial; and you need to grab on to your relationship with Christ and hold on for your very life.

So, if that’s you today, dear one, … “Through it all!”HOLD ON!!!

Today’s Prayer: Lord, I’m holding on to You today - and all days. 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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