Sunday, December 10, 2017

December 10, 2017 … Redeemed and Restored

Berry Patch Devotions in 2017 - Day 344 

Devotional Song:GO TO THIS LINK …  Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and lyrics from the group Big Daddy Weave singing … Redeemed … poignantly and powerfully singing of how God’s grace redeems and restores ALL who truly believe on Christ as LORD.


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Highlight Verse[s]: Psalm 145:14 [NLT] … 14  The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. … God’s promise, thru David, that He will lift up and restore all who are down.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Psalm 145:1-16 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK
… King David praises His Lord, our redeemer!!
============= Reference Passage [NLT] : … Romans 12:1-2 [NLT] … 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. 
… In Christ we are to avoid the patterns of the world which try to lead us astray as we are transformed in His image.

Reference Passage [NLT] : … 2nd Corinthians 3:18, 5:17-18 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK 
… Paul strongly teaches fellow Christians that we have been reconciled to Christlikeness and are made over in His image.

Reference Passage [NLT] : … Colossians 3:1-17 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK 
… In Christ we can now put on His robes of righteousness and be free from our dirty, sinful past.

Reference Passage [NLT] : … Philippians 1:6 [NLT] … 6 being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 
… God’s grace will complete His work on me in glory, when I will become like my Lord.

My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Leslie Koh, uses the illustration of a transformed group of singers who sang their praises to the God who has redeemed them. The ODB author wrote: A guest band was leading praise and worship at our church, and their passion for the Lord was moving. We could see—and feel—their enthusiasm. [See photo] 
Then the musicians revealed that they were all ex-prisoners. Suddenly their songs took on special meaning, and I saw why their words of praise meant so much to them. Their worship was a testimony of lives broken and restored. 
The world may embrace success. But stories of past failure offer people hope too. They assure us that God loves us no matter how many times we have failed. Pastor Gary Inrig says that what we call the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 could well be entitled God’s Hall of Reclaimed Failures. “There is scarcely an individual in that chapter without a serious blemish in his or her life,” he observes. “But God is in the business of restoring failures . . . . That is a great principle of God’s grace.” 

Is there anyone reading here who has not had some failure in the past? No one, I assume!!

Well, I’m certainly one who can, as did King David in Psalm 145 linked above, lift my enthusiastic praises to God for how He, as Big Daddy Weave sings, has redeemed me from the pits of hell.

If you saw my blog yesterday, it was all about God changing believers from in “Inside Out” (see link here), you’ll note that I’m using the same reference scriptures today to lend truth to the reality that our God redeems/restores any/all who come to receive our Lord’s saving and sanitizing grace.

I pray that all who read here are in that number. Being one I certainly raise my hardy … HALLELUJAH!!!.

My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … King Jesus, … Precious Spirit … Dear Lord, … Again today I praise You for my make-over into Your image. … 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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